EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA 


J.A,ZAHM. 


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Evolution  and  Dogma 


BY 
THE  REVEREND  J.  A.  ZAHM,  Ph.D.,  C.  S.  C. 

Professor  of  Physics  in  the  University  of  Notre  Dame. 

Author   of   "Sound    and    Music,'.'    "Bible,    Science  and    Faith,"    "Catholic 

Science  and  Catholic  Scientists."   etc. 


fldvTa   dt£x6ff/xr/(7£   voost, 

— Anaxagoras. 

ThB  rose-seed  holds  the  glory  of  the  rose  ; 

Within  its  heart  sweet  summer  fragrance  bides. 
And  there  each  petal's  tender  blush-tint  hides. 

Till  June  bids  nature  all  her  charms  disclose. 

The  sleeping  infant's  heart  and  brain  may  hold 
The  glorious  power  that  in  future  years 
Shall  move  the  listening  world  to  smiles  and  tears — 

'Tis  life  potential  that  the  days  unfold. 

One  act  of  Will  Divine,  and  lo  I  the  seed 

Of  growth  was  sown  in  young  creation's  heart. 
From  Life  Eternal  hath  all  life  its  start 

And  endless  change  as  changeless  law  we  read. 


CHICAGO 

D.  H.  MCBRIDE  &  CO. 
1896 


Copyright,  1896, 

BY 

J.  A.  ZAHM. 


tbtt)eMemoiYof   ^ 

^myMothei^' 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


PART  Second  of  this  work  covers  substantially 
the  same  ground  as  my  lectures  on  Evolution, 
delivered  before  the  Madison  and  Plattsburgh  Sum- 
mer Schools  and  before  the  Winter  School  of  New 
Orleans.  Indeed,  the  chief  difference  between  the 
subject-matter  of  Part  Second,  and  that  of  the  lec- 
tures as  given  at  the  Summer  and  Winter  Schools, 
consists  in  the  foot-notes  which  have  been  added  to 
the  text,  and  in  a  more  exhaustive  treatment  of  cer- 
tain topics  herein  discussed  than  was  possible  in  the 
time  allotted  to  them  in  the  lecture  hall. 

J.  A.  Zahm,  C.  S.  C. 
Notre  Dame  University,  December  i8,  1895.  ^ 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGES 

Introduction xiii-xxx 


PART   I. 

EVOLUTION,   PAST   AND    PRESENT. 


CHAPTER  I. 
NATURE  AND   SCOPE  OF   EVOLUTION. 

Early  Speculations  Regarding  Nature  and  Man — Com- 
prehensiveness of  Evolution  —  Evolution  Defined  — 
Literature  of  Evolution  —  Freedom  from  Bias  in  the 
Discussion  of  Evolution 13-22 

CHAPTER   II. 

EARLY   EVOLUTIONARY  VIEWS. 

First  Studies  of  Nature  —  Evolution  Among  the  Greeks  — 

Aristotle's  Observations  —  Mediaeval  Writers.    .     .     .     23-30 

CHAPTER  III. 

FOSSILS  AND   GIANTS. 

Early  Notions    Regarding   Fossils  —  Italian  Geologists   on 
Fossils —  Legends  About  Giants  — True  Significance  of 
Fossils — Controversy  in  the  French  Academy.    .     .     31-40 
(7) 


8  E  VOL U TION  A ND  DOGMA. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

SPONTANEOUS   GENERATION   AND   SCIENTIFIC 
DISCOVERY. 

PAGES 

Early  Views  Regarding  Abiogenesis  —  Fathers  and  School- 
men on  Abiogenesis  —  Redi's  Experiments  —  Later 
Researches  —  General  Advance  in  Science  —  Chemistry 
and  Astronomy  —  Testimony  of  Biology 41-54 

CHAPTER  V. 

FROM   LORD  BACON  TO  CHARLES  DARWIN. 

First  Materials  for  the  Controversy — Bacon  and  Kant  — 
Linnaeus  and  BafTon  —  Erasmus  Darwin  and  Lamarck  — 
Species  and  Varieties 55-^4 

CHAPTER  VI. 

CONTROVERSY  AND  PROGRESS. 

Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species  " —  Herbert  Spencer  and  Com- 
peers—  Science  and  Philosophy  —  Anticipations  of 
Discoveries  —  Species  and  Creation  —  Evolutionists 
and  Anti-Evolutionists  —  No  Via  Media  Possible  — 
The  Miltonic  Hypothesis  —  Views  of  Agassiz  —  Evolu- 
tion  ^S~^2> 

CHAPTER  VII. 

EVIDENCES   OF   EVOLUTION. 

Systems  of  Classification  —  Cuvier  and  His  Successors  — 
Points  of  View — Taxonomic  Divisions  —  Plato's  "Grand 
Ideas  "  —  Cuvier  on  Species  —  Definition  of  Species  — 
Difficulties  Regarding  Species  —  Agassiz'  V^iews  — 
Species  in  the  Making  —  De  CandoUe  and  Baird  — 
Evidences  of  Organic  Evolution  —  A  Philological  Illus- 
tration —  Tree-like  System  of  Classification  —  The  Ar- 
gument from  Structure  and  Morphology —  Rudimentary 
Organs  —  Argument    from   Embryology  —  Amphioxus 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  9 

PACKS 

and  Loligo  —  Meaning  of  Recapitulation  —  Geograph- 
ical Distribution  of  Organisms  —  Facts  of  Geological 
Succession — The  Demonstrative  Evidence  of  Evolu- 
tion —  Generalized  Types  —  Probability  of  Evolution  — 
Special  Creation  and  Evolution 84-139 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION. 

Declarations  of  Anti- Evolutionists  —  Historical  and  Ar- 
chaeological Objections  —  Egyptian  Mummies  —  Testi- 
mony of  the  Monuments  —  Evidence  from  Plants  — 
Views  of  Agassiz,  Barrande  and  Others  —  Misappre- 
hension of  the  Nature  of  Evolution,  and  Answer  to 
Objections  —  Existence  and  Cause  of  Variations  — 
Paucity  of  Transitional  Forms  —  Variations  and  the 
Formation  of  Fossiliferous  Deposits  —  Romanes  on 
Difficulties  Attending  Preservation  of  Fossils  —  Small 
Percentage  of  Fossil  Forms  —  Extraordinary  Interca- 
lary Forms  —  Imperfection  of  the  Geological  Record — 
Time,  Change  and  Equilibrium  —  Paleontology  Com- 
pared With  Egyptology  and  Assyriology  —  Sterility  of 
Species  When  Crossed  —  Morphological  and  Physiolog- 
ical Species  —  True  Significance  of  the  Term  "Spe- 
cies "  —  Factors  of  Evolution  —  Evolutionary  Theories 
and  Their  Difficulties  —  The  Ideal  Theory.     .     .     .     140-202 


PART  II. 

EVOLUTION   AND    DOGMA. 


CHAPTER  I. 
MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORY,  ERRORS  IN  DOC- 
TRINE AND  MISTAKES  IN  TERMINOLOGY. 

Evolution  of  the  Evolution  Theory  —  Evolution  and  Dar-^ 
winism  —  Evolution,  Atheism   and  Nihilism  —  Evolu- 


^ 


■/><?     fi^oa  M^f 


10  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 


S 


"~) 


tion  and  Faith  —  Evolution  and  Science  —  Ignorance  of 
Terms  —  Materialism  and  Dualism  —  Pantheism  — 
Dogma  of  Creation  —  The  V" atican  Council  on  Crea- 
tion—  Meaning  of  the  Word  "Nature" — Nature  and 
God. 205-229 


CHAPTER  II. 

MONISM   AND   EVOLUTION. 

HitCKEL  and  Monism — Hseckel  as  a  Scientist  —  Haeckel's 
Nature-Philosophy  —  Five  Propositions  of  Haeckel  — 
God  and  the  Soul  —  Organic  and  Inorganic  Matter  — 
The  Religion  of  the  Future  —  Haeckel's  Limitations  — 
Verbal  Jugglery  —  False  Analogy  —  Type  of  a  Class.     230-253 

CHAPTER  III. 

AGNOSTICISM  AND  EVOLUTION. 

Nature  and  Scope  of  Agnosticism  —  Late  Developments  of 
Agnosticism  —  Mansel,  Huxley  and  Romanes  —  Doc- 
ta  Ignorantia  —  Agnosticism  as  a  Via  Media  —  Origin 
of  the  Universe — Spencer's  Unknowable — Max  Miil- 
ler  on  Agnosticism  —  Sources  of  Agnosticism  —  Infinite 
Time  —  Infinite  Space  —  Mysteries  of  Nature —  Chris- 
tian Agnosticism  —  Gods  of  the  Positivist  and  the  Ag- 
nostic      254-278 

CHAPTER   IV. 

THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION. 
Evolution  and  Faith  t-  Teachings  of  St.  Augustine  —  Views 
of  the  Angelic  Doctor  —  Seminales  Rationes  —  Creation 
According  to  Scripture  —  The  Divine  Administration  — 
Efficient  Causality  of  Creatures  —  Occasionalism  —  An- 
thropomorphism —  Divine  Interference  —  Science  and 
Creation — Darwin's  Objection  —  Limitations  of  Spe- 
cialists—  Evolution  and  Catholic  Teaching — The  Scho- 
lastic Doctrine  of  Species —  Milton  and  Ray.     .     .     279-319 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  11 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE. 

PAGBS 

Spontaneous  Generation  —  The  Nature  of  Life  — The  Germ 
of  Life  —  Abiogenesis  —  Artificial  Production  of  Life  — 
Protoplasm 320-339 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN. 
The  Missing  Link  —  The  Human  Soul  —  Creation  of  Man's 
Body  —  Mivart's  Theory  —  Angelic  Doctor  on  Creation 
of  Adam  —  Views  of  Cardinal  Gonzales  —  Opinions  of 
Other  Writers  —  Interpretation  Not  Revelation.     .     340-368 

CHAPTER  Vn. 

TELEOLOGY,  OLD  AND  NEW. 
The  Doctrine  of  Final  Causes  —  A  Newer  Teleology — Evo- 
lution and  Teleology  —  Design    and  Purpose  in  Na- 
ture      369-377 

CHAPTER   Vni. 

RETROSPECT,  REFLECTIONS  AND  CON- 
CLUSION. 
Evolution  Not  a  New  Theory  —  Teachings  of  Greek  Phi- 
losophers—  Teleological     Ideas    of    Anaxagoras   and 
Aristotle  —  Influence    of   Aristotle —t  Darwinism    Not 
EvolutiQ:^^^ Evolution  in  the  Future— (^olution  NoT 
Antagonistic  to   Religion^  Objections   Against    New 
Theories  —  Galileo  and  the  Copernican  Theory  —  Con- 
servatism in  Science  —  Conflict  of  Opinions  Beneficial — 
Evolution  and  Creationism  —  Errors  in  the  Infancy  of 
Science  —  Science    Not    Omnipotent  —  Bankruptcy  of 
Science  —  Conquests   of  Science  —  Evidences   of   De- 
sign and  Purpose  —  Rudimentary  Organs  —  Evolutjon, 
ScriptuTe^aifd'THeology  r>  Evolution  and  Special  Crea- 
tion —  GenesiacJDays,  Fioo4i_Z°^^*'^  *°^  Antiquity  of 
Man  —(Eminent  Catholics  on  Evolution  ■9—jFaithHar~ 
Nothing  to    Apprehend  froffi^^volutiqo  —  Misappre- 
hg]isians.RegMdihg  Evolution  — JlYQlBtion,]^j}nDoE^ 
CUng  Conception.~| 378-438 


PART  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 


"  II  faut  savoir  douter  ou  il  faut,  assurer  oii  il  faut,  et  se 
soumettre  ou  il  faut.  Qui  ne  fait  ainsi  n'entend  pas  la  force  de 
la  raison.  II  y  en  a  qui  faillent  contre  ces  trois  principes ;  ou 
en  assurant  tout  comme  d^monstratif,  manque  de  se  connaitre 
en  demonstration ;  ou  en  doutant  de  tout,  manque  de  savoir  ou 
il  faut  se  soumettre ;  ou  en  se  soumettant  en  tout,  manque  de 
savoir  ou  il  faut  juger."     Pascal,  "Pensees." 


"  We  must  know  when  to  doubt,  when  fo  feel  certain,  when 
to  submit.  Who  fails  in  this  understands  not  the  force  of  reason. 
There  are  those  who  offend  against  these  three  rules,  either  by 
accepting  everything  as  evidence,  for  want  of  knowing  what 
evidence  is  ;  or  by  doubting  everything,  for  want  of  knowing  when 
to  submit ;  or  by  yielding  in  everything,  for  want  of  knowing 
when  to  use  their  judgment." 


INTRODUCTION. 


T^  luv  yap  ohfiEl  navra  awaSei  ra  vnapxovra, 
TO  Si  ^evSei  raxv  iiaiJHJvel  Ta7jfits. — Aristotle. 

"For  with  the  truth  all  things  that  exist  are 
in  harmony,  but  with  the  false  the  true  at 
once  disagrees." 

THE  present  work  is  devoted  chiefly  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  three  topics  which,  although  in  a 
measure  independent  one  of  the  other,  are,  never- 
theless, so  closely  allied  that  they  may  be  viewed  as 
parts  of  one  and  the  same  subject.  The  first  of  these 
topics  embraces  a  brief  sketch  of  the  evolutionary 
theory  from  its  earliest  beginnings  to  the  present 
time  ;  the  second  takes  up  the  pros  and  the  cons  of  the 
theory  as  it  now  stands ;  while  the  third  deals  with 
the  reciprocal  and  little-understood  relations  be- 
tween Evolution  and  Christian  faith. 

It  is  often  supposed  by  those  who  should  know 
better,  that  the  Evolution  theory  is  something  which 
is  of  very  recent  origin ;  something  about  which  little 
or  nothing  was  known  before  the  publication  of 
Charles  Darwin's  celebrated  work,  "The  Origin  of 
Species."  Frequently,  too,  it  is  confounded  with 
Darwinism,  or  some  other  modern  attempt  to  ex- 
plain the  action  of  Evolution,  or  determine  the  fac- 
tors which  have  been  operative  in  the  development 
of  the  higher  from  the  lower  forms  of  life.     The 

(xiii) 


Xiv  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

purpose  of  the  first  six  chapters  of  this  book  is  to 
show  that  such  views  are  unwarranted  ;  that  Evolu- 
tion, far  from  being  of  recent  date,  is  a  theory  whose 
germs  are  discernible  in  the  earliest  dawn  of  philo- 
sophic thought.  In  the  two  following  chapters  are 
given,  in  brief  compass,  some  of  the  principal  argu- 
ments which  are  usually  adduced  in  favor  of,  or 
against.  Evolution.  These  chapters,  together  with 
those  which  precede  them,  constitute  Part  First  of 
the  present  volume ;  Part  Second  being  wholly 
devoted  to  the  consideration  of  the  third  topic, 
namely.  Evolution  in  its  relation  to  Catholic 
Dogma.  For  avowed  Christians,  to  whatever  creed 
they  may  belong,  the  subject  relates  to  matters  of 
grave  import  and  abiding  interest,  and  this  import 
and  interest,  great  as  they  are  from  the  nature  of  the 
theme  itself,  have  been  enhanced  a  hundred  fold 
by  the  protracted  and  violent  controversies  to  which 
Evolution  has  given  rise,  no  less  than  by  the  many 
misconceptions  which  yet  prevail,  and  the  many 
doubts  which  still  remain  to  be  dissipated. 

Can  a  Catholic,  can  a  Christian  of  any  denomi- 
nation, consistently  with  the  faith  he  holds  dear,  be 
an  evolutionist ;  or  is  there  something  in  the  theory 
that  is  so  antagonistic  to  faith  and  Scripture  as  to 
render  its  acceptance  tantamount  to  the  denial  of 
the  fundamental  tenets  of  religious  belief?  The 
-question,  as  we  shall  learn,  has  been  answered  both 
affirmatively  and  negatively.  But,  as  is  evident,  the 
response  cannot  be  both  yea  and  nay.  It  must  be 
one  or  the  other,  and  the  query  now  is,  which  an- 
swer is  to  be  given,  the  negative  or  the  affirmative  ? 


IN  TR  OD  UC  TION.  XV 

Whatever  may  be  the  outcome  of  the  controver- 
sy, whatever  may  be  the  results  of  future  research 
and  discovery,  there  is  absolutely  no  room  for  ap- 
prehension respecting  the  claims  and  authority  of 
Scripture  and  Catholic  Dogma.  Science  will  never 
be  able  to  contradict  aught  that  God  has  revealed  ; 
for  it  is  not  possible  that  the  Divine  works  and 
the  Divine  words  should  ever  be  in  any  relation  to 
each  Qther  but  one  of  the  most  perfect  harmony. 
Doubts  and  difficulties  may  obtain  for  a  time;  the 
forces  of  error  may  for  a  while  appear  triumphant ;  the 
testimonies  of  the  Lord  may  be  tried  to  the  utter- 
most ;  but  in  the  long  run  it  will  always  be  found, 
as  has  so  often  been  the  case  in  the  past,  that 
the  Bible  and  faith,  like  truth,  will  come  forth  un- 
harmed and  intact  from  any  ordeal,  however  severe, 
to  which  they  may  be  subjected.  For  error  is  im- 
potent against  truth ;  the  pride  of  man's  intellect  is  of 
no  avail  against  the  wisdom  of  the  Almighty.  False 
teaching  and  false  views  of  nature  are  but  the  vain 
projections  of  the  imaginations  of  men ;  false  theo- 
ries and  false  hypotheses  are  often  no  more  than 
what  St.  Augustine  aptly  designates  "the  great  ab- 
surdities of  great  teachers — magna  magnorum  deli- 
ramenta  doctorum.  How  true,  indeed,  the  words 
of  the  old  distich: 

Nostra  damus  quum  falsa  damus,  nam  fallere 
nostrum  est, 

Et  quum  falsa  damus,  nil  nisi  nostra  damus. 

The  fictions  of  opinions  are  ephemeral,  but  the 
testimonies  of  the  Lord  are  everlasting.  Opinionum 
commenta  deUt  dies,  says  Cicero.     This  utterance  of 


xvi  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  old  Roman  philosopher  applies  with  singular 
point  to  all  those  conjectures  of  scientists,  philoso- 
phers and  exegetists,  who  fail  to  make  their  views 
a  true  reflex  of  the  teachings  of  nature,  natures 
indicicBy  or  who  promulgate  theories  manifestly  an- 
tagonistic to  the  declarations  of  faith  or  of  the  In- 
spired Record. 

A  striking  illustration  of  the  unwisdom  of  com- 
mitting one's  self  to  premature  notions,  or  unproved 
hypotheses,  especially  before  all  the  evidence  in  the 
case  is  properly  weighed,  is  afforded  in  the  long  and 
animated  controversy  respecting  the  authorship  of 
the  Pentateuch.  Many  reasons  have  been  assigned 
by  the  higher  critics  why  it  could  not  have  been  the 
production  of  Moses,  to  whom  it  has  so  long  been 
ascribed  by  a  venerable  tradition,  and  one  of  the 
objections  urged  against  the  Mosaic  authorship  was, 
that  written  language  was  unknown  in  the  age  dur- 
ing which  the  Jewish  legislator  is  reputed  to  have 
lived.  Now,  however,  the  distinguished  philologist 
and  archaeologist.  Prof.  Sayce,  comes  forward  and 
proves,  beyond  doubt  or  quibble,  that  the  conten- 
tion of  the  higher  critics  respecting  the  authorship 
of  the  Bible  is  ill-founded.  So  sure,  indeed,  is  he, 
whereof  he  speaks,  that  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
assert  "  not  only  that  Moses  could  have  written  the 
Pentateuch,  but  that  it  would  have  been  something 
like  a  miracle  if  he  had  not  done  so." 

Even  in  Germany,  the  great  stronghold  of  the 
Higher  Criticism,  we  meet  with  the  expression  of 
similar  views,  and  that,  too,  on  the  part  of  such 
noted    Biblical     scholars    as    Rupprecht,   and    Dr. 


INTRODUCTION,  xvii 

Adolph  Zahn  of  Stuttgart.  The  former,  as  a  re- 
sult of  his  investigations,  declares  positively  "  that 
the  Pentateuch  dates  back  to  the  Mosaic  period 
of  Divine  revelation,  and  that  its  author  is  Moses 
himself,  the  greatest  prophet  in  Israel."  And  as  to 
the  groundless  assertion  that  writing  was  unknown 
at  the  time  of  the  Hebrew  law-giver,  we  have  the 
deliberate  statement  of  Sayce  that  "Canaan,  in  the 
Mosaic  age,  like  the  countries  which  surrounded  it, 
was  fully  as  literary  as  was  Europe  in  the  time  of 
the  Renaissance." ' 

Such  and  similar  instances  of  premature  claims 
for  unwarranted  hypotheses,  should  teach  us  the 
wisdom  of  practicing  a  proper  reserve  in  respect  of 
them,  and  of  suspending  judgment  until  we  can  yield 
assent  which  is  based  on  unimpeachable  evidence. 
But  this  does  not  imply  that  we  should  go  to  the 
extreme  of  conservatism,  or  display  a  fanatical  obsti- 
nacy  in  the  assertion  of  traditional  views  which  are 
demonstrably  untenable.  There  is  a  broad  reach 
between  ultra-conservatism  and  reprehensible  liber- 
alism or  arrogant  temerity.     In  this  golden  mean 


'  See  The  Contemporary  Review,  pp.  480-481,  for  Octo- 
ber, 1895.  Cf.,  also,  bj  the  same  author.  The  Higher  Criti- 
cism and  the  Verdict  of  the  Monuments,  chapter  11,  and 
Literature  of  the  Old  Testament  in  "The  People's  Bible 
History,"  mentioned  later.  In  the  last-named  contribution  to 
Biblical  lore,  the  erudite  Oxford  divine  affirms,  and  without 
fear  of  contradiction,  "  that  one  of  the  first  and  most  important 
results  of  the  discoveries  which  have  been  pouring  in  upon  us 
during  the  last  few  years,  is  the  proof  that  Canaan  was  a  land 
of  readers  and  writers  long  before  the  Israelites  entered  it,  and 
that  the  Mosaic  age  was  one  of  high  literary  activity.  So  far 
as  the  use  of  writing  is  concerned,  there  is  now  no  longer  any 
reason  for  doubting  that  the  earlier  books  of  the  Bible  might  have 
been  contemporaneous  with  the  events  they  profess  to  record." 


XViii  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

there  is  ample  field  for  research  and  speculation, 
without  any  danger  on  the  one  side  of  trenching 
on  faith,  or  of  putting  a  bar  to  intellectual  progress 
on  the  other.  The  Fathers  of  the  early  Church  and 
the  Schoolmen  of  mediaeval  times,  show  us  what 
liberty  of  thought  the  Catholic  may  enjoy  in  the 
discussion  of  all  questions  outside  the  domain  of 
revealed  truth. 

I  am  not  unaware  of  the  fact  that  Evolution  has 
had  suspicion  directed  against  it,  and  odium  cast 
upon  it,  because  of  its  materialistic  implications  and 
its  long  anti-Christian  associations.  I  know  it  has 
been  banned  and  tabooed  because  it  has  received  the 
cordial  imprimatur  of  the  advocates  of  Agnosticism, 
and  the  special  commendation  of  the  defenders  of 
Atheism ;  that  it  has  long  been  identified  with  false 
systems  of  philosophy,  and  made  to  render  yeoman 
service  in  countless  onslaughts  against  religion  and 
the  Church,  against  morality  and  free-will,  against 
God  and  His  providential  government  of  the  uni- 
verse. But  this  does  not  prove  that  Evolution  is 
ill-founded  or  that  it  is  destitute  of  all  elements  of 
truth.  Far  from  it.  It  is  because  Evolution  con- 
tains so  large  an  element  of  truth,  because  it  ex- 
plains countless  facts  and  phenomena  which  are 
explicable  on  no  other  theory,  that  it  has  met  with 
such  universal  favor,  and  that  it  has  proved  such  a 
powerful  agency  in  the  dissemination  of  error  and 
in  giving  verisimilitude  to  the  most  damnable  of 
doctrines.  Such  being  the  case,  ours  is  the  duty  to 
withdraw  the  truth  from  its  enforced  and  unnatural 
alliance,  and  to  show  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which 


INTRODUCTION.  xix 

Evolution  can  be  understood — in  which  it  must  be 
understood,  if  it  repose  on  a  rational  basis — in 
which,  far  from  contributing  to  the  propagation  of 
false  views  of  nature  and  God,  it  is  calculated  to 
render  invaluable  aid  in  the  cause  of  both  science 
and  religion.  From  being  an  agency  for  the  pro- 
mulgation of  Monism,  Materialism  and  Pantheism, 
it  should  be  converted  into  a  power  which  makes 
for  righteousness  and  the  exaltation  of  holy  faith 
and  undying  truth. 

It  were  puerile  to  imagine  that  religion  has  any- 
thing to  fear  from  the  advance  of  science,  or  from 
Evolution  receiving  all  the  prominence  which  the 
facts  in  its  favor  will  justify.  Science  and  religion, 
revelation  and  nature,  mutually  supplement  one  an- 
other, and  it  would  be  against  the  best  interests  of 
both  religion  and  science  to  do  aught  that  would 
divorce  them,  or  prevent  their  remaining  the  close 
allies  which  Infinite  Wisdom  designed  them  to  be. 
"  Logically  regarded,  the  advance  of  science,  far 
from  having  weakened  religion  has  immeasurably 
strengthened  it."  So  wrote  shortly  before  his  death 
one  who,  during  the  best  years  of  his  life,  was  an 
ardent  Darwinian  and  an  avowed  agnostic.  And 
the  same  gifted  votary  of  science  declared,  that "  The 
teleology  of  revelation  supplements  that  of  nature, 
and  so,  to  the  spiritually  minded  man,  they  logically 
and  mutually  corroborate  one  another."  ' 

It  behooves  us  to  realize  that  in  our  age  of  doubt 
and  intellectual  confusion,  when  so  many  seek  in  the 
gloaming  what  is  visible  only  in  the  effulgence  of  the 

'  "  Thoughts  on  Religion,''  p.  179,  by  George  Romanes. 

E. —  la 


XX 


EVOLU TION  A ND  D O GMA . 


midday  sun,  when  the  skeptic  sees  an  interrogation 
point  at  the  end  of  every  proposition,  and  when  un- 
certainty and  mystery  hover  over  so  much  we  should 
like  to  know  —  it  behooves  us,  I  say,  to  realize,  that 
we  must  have  recourse  to  everything  that  is  calcu- 
lated to  dispel  the  darkness  with  which  we  are  sur- 
rounded, and  to  relieve  the  harrowing  doubts  with 
which  so  many  of  our  fellow  men  are  oppressed. 
But  more  than  this.  Important  as  it  is  for  us  to 
bear  in  mind  that  we  live  in  an  age  of  doubt  and 
disquietude,  it  is  none  the  less  important  for  us  not 
to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  our  lot  is  cast  in  an  age 
of  dissent  and  conflict. 

Religion  is  assailed  on  all  sides ;  principles  we 
hold  most  dear  are  treated  with  contumely  and 
scorn,  and  the  very  foundations  of  belief  in  a 
personal  Creator,  and  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
are  systematically  attacked  by  the  enemies  of  God 
and  His  Church.  If,  then,  we  would  accomplish 
anything  in  the  conflict  which  is  now  raging  so 
fiercely  all  around  us,  it  is  imperative  that  we  should 
provide  ourselves  with  the  most  approved  means  of 
attack  and  defense,  and  that  we  should  be  able  not 
only  to  guard  the  stronghold  of  the  faith,  but  that 
we  should  likewise  be  equipped  and  ready  to  meet 
our  enemies  out  in  the  open.  In  these  days  of 
Maxim  guns,  old  worn-out  blunderbusses  are  worse 
than  useless.  To  attempt  to  cope  with  the  modern 
spirit  of  error  by  means  of  antiquated  and  discarded 
weapons  of  offense  and  defense,  were  as  foolish  as 
to  pit  a  Roman  trireme  or  a  mediaeval  galley  against  a 
modern  steel  cruiser  or  the  latest  type  of  battleship. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

To  pass  from  the  language  of  metaphor  to  lan- 
guage simple  and  unadorned,  our  great,  or  more 
truthfully  our  greatest  enemy,  in  the  intellectual 
world  to-day,  is  Naturalism — variously  known  as  Ag- 
nosticism, Positivism,  Empiricism  —  which,  as  Mr. 
Balfour  well  observes,  "  is  in  reality  the  only  system 
which  ultimately  profits  by  any  defeats  which  the- 
ology may  sustain,  or  which  may  be  counted  on  to 
flood  the  spaces  from  which  the  tide  of  religion  has 
receded."  ' 

It  is  Naturalism  that,  allying  itself  with  Evolution, 
or  some  of  the  many  theories  of  Evolution  which 
have  attracted  such  widespread  attention  during  the 
last  half  century,  has  counted  such  a  formidable  fol- 
lowing that  the  friends  of  religion  and  Scripture 
might  well  despair  of  final  victory,  did  they  not  know 
the  invincibility  of  truth,  and  that,  however  it  may  be 
obscured  for  a  time,  or  however  much  it  may  appar- 
ently be  weakened,  it  is  sure  to  prevail  and  in  the 
end  issue  from  the  contest  triumphant. 

In  writing  the  present  work  I  have  ever  had  be- 
fore my  mind  the  words  of  wisdom  of  our  Holy 
Father,  Leo  XIII,  concerning  the  duty  incumbent 
on  all  Catholics,  to  turn  the  discoveries  of  science  into 
so  many  means  of  illuminating  and  corroborating  the 
teachings  of  faith  and  the  declarations  of  the  Sacred 
Text.  In  public  and  in  private,  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  in  briefs,  allocutions  and  encyclicals,  he  has 
constantly  and  strenuously  urged  a  thorough  study 
of  science  in  all  its  branches.  But  nowhere  does 
he  insist  more  strongly  on  the  profound  study  of 

'  "The  Foundations  of  Belief,"  p.  6. 


XXii  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

science,  than  in  his  two  masterly  encyclicals 
"  yEterni  Patris  "  and  "  Providentissimus  Deus."  In 
these  noble  utterances  both  the  clergy  and  the  laity 
are  stimulated  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  contest 
which  is  everywhere  so  furious  ;  "  to  repulse  hostile 
assaults,"  and  that,  too,  by  "  modern  methods  of 
attack,"  and  by  "  turning  the  arms  of  a  perverted 
science  into  weapons  of  defense."  '  He  tells  us 
that  "  a  knowledge  of  natural  science  will  be  of 
very  great  assistance  in  detecting  attacks  on  the 
Sacred  Books  and  in  refuting  them."  For  "  attacks 
of  this  kind,"  the  venerable  Pontiff  remarks,  "  bear- 
ing as  they  do  on  matters  of  sensible  experience, 
are  peculiarly  dangerous  both  to  the  masses  and 
also  to  the  young  who  are  beginning  their  literary 
studies." 

In  reading  these  precious  documents  one  would 
almost  think  that  the  Holy  Father  had  in  mind  the 
manifold  materialistic  hypotheses,  so  dangerous  to 
the  faith  of  the  uninstructed,  which  have  grouped 
themselves  around  the  much-abused  theory  of  con- 
temporary Evolution.  For,  is  it  not  a  matter  of 
daily  observation  and  experience,  that  there  is  an  in- 
creasing number  of  pious  but  timid  souls  who  are 
sorely  distressed  by  doubts  which  have  been  occa- 
sioned by  the  current  theories  of  Transformism  ? 
They  imagine,  because  it  is  continually  dinned  into 

'  "Quoniam  igitur  tantum  ii  possunt  religioni  importare 
commodi,  quibus  cum  catholicas  professionis  gratia  felicem  indol- 
em  ingenii  benignum  numen  impertiit ;  ideo  in  hac  acerrima  agi- 
tatione  studiorum,  quse  Scripturas  quoquo  modoattingunt,  aptum 
sibi  quisque  eligant  studii  genus,  in  quo  aliquando  excellentes 
obiecta  in  illas  improbse  scientise  tela,  non  sine  gloria,  repellant." 
From  the  encyclical  "  Providentissimus  Deus." 


TN  TRODUC  TION.  xxiii 

their  ears,  that  there  is  a  mortal  antagonism  between 
the  principles  of  faith  and  the  teachings  of  Evolu- 
tion, They  are  assured,  moreover,  not  only  that 
such  an  antagonism  actually  exists,  but  also  that  it 
is  based  on  undeniable  facts,  on  absolute  demonstra- 
tion. They  are  told  that  if  they  wish  to  be  consis- 
tent, if  they  wish  to  obey  the  certain  behests  of 
reason,  they  must  choose  between  Evolution  and 
faith,  between  science  and  superstition.  The  re- 
sult is,  too  often,  alas !  that  they  make  shipwreck  of 
their  faith,  and  plunge  headlong  into  the  dark  and 
hopeless  errors  of  Naturalism. 

But  not  only  have  I  been  ever  mindful  of  the 
teachings  of  the  venerable  Pontiff,  Leo  XIII ;  I  have 
also,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  striven  to  follow  the 
path  marked  out  by  those  great  masters  of  Catholic 
philosophy  and  theology,  St.  Augustine  and  St. 
Thomas  of  Aquin.  I  have  always  had  before  me 
their  declarations  respecting  creation,  and  the  man- 
ner in  which  we  may  conceive  the  world  to  have  been 
evolved  from  its  pristine  chaotic  condition  to  its 
present  state  of  order  and  loveliness.  And  to  make 
my  task  easier,  I  have  had  frequent  recourse  to  those 
two  modern  luminaries  of  science  and  faith,  the 
profound  Jesuit,  Father  Harper,  and  the  eminent 
Dominican,  Cardinal  Gonzales.  To  the  "  Metaphys- 
ics of  the  School,"  by  the  former,  and  to  "  La 
Biblia  y  la  Ciencia,"  by  the  latter,  I  am  specially  in- 
debted for  information  and  points  of  view  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  elsewhere.  Both  of  these 
distinguished  scholars  evince  a  rare  mastery  of  the 
subjects  which  they  discuss  with  such  lucidity,  and 


xxi V  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

one  may  safely  follow  them  with  the  utmost  confi- 
dence, and  with  the  full  assurance  that  ample  justice 
will  always  be  done  to  the  claims  of  both  science 
and  Dogma. 

In  the  present  work  I  have  studiously  avoided 
everything  that  could  justly  be  construed  as  an  ex- 
aggeration of  the  results  achieved  by  science,  or  as  a 
minimizing  of  the  dogmatic  teachings  of  the  Church 
of  God.  I  have  endeavored  to  present  Catholic 
doctrines  and  scientific  tenets  in  their  true  light,  and 
to  exhibit  the  mutual  relations  of  one  to  the  other 
in  the  fairest  possible  manner.  Purely  ex  parte 
statements  and  special  pleadings  are  alien  from  a  pro- 
fessedly didactic  work,  and  hence  my  constant  effort 
has  been  to  avoid  all  bias,  to  present  impartially  and 
dispassionately  both  sides  of  controverted  questions, 
and  to  favor  only  such  conclusions  as  seemed  to  be 
warranted  by  indisputable  evidence. 

The  Church  is  committed  to  no  theory  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  world  or  its  inhabitants.  Hence,  as  a 
Catholic,  I  am  bound  to  no  theory  of  Evolution  or 
of  special  creation,  except  in  so  far  as  there  may  be 
positive  evidence  in  behalf  of  such  theory.  As  a 
man  of  science  I  must  estimate,  as  everyone  else 
must  estimate,  the  merits  or  demerits  of  any  hy- 
pothesis respecting  the  genesis  and  development  of 
the  divers  forms  of  life,  simply  and  solely  by  the 
arguments  which  can  be  advanced  in  its  support.  I 
have  no  prepossessions  for  Evolution  ;  nor  have  I 
any  prejudice  against  special  creation.  If  it  can  be 
demonstrated  that  Evolution  is  the  modus  creandi 
which  the  Almighty  has  been  pleased  to  adopt,  I 


INTRODUCTION.  xxv 

shall  rejoice  that  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  world- 
problems  has  at  length  received  a  solution.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  can  be  shown  that  the  traditional 
view  of  special  creation  is  the  one  to  which  we  must 
give  our  adhesion,  I  shall  rejoice  equally,  for  the 
sole  desire  of  every  student  of  nature,  as  well  as  the 
sole  desire  of  every  son  of  the  Church,  should  be 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  whole  and  undefiled. 

I  have,  then,  no  pet  theory  to  exploit,  nothing 
sensational  to  defend,  nothing  to  uphold  that  is  in- 
consistent with  the  strictest  orthodoxy  or  the  most 
rigid  Ultramontanism.  My  sole  aim  and  purpose  in 
writing  this  work  has  been,  I  repeat  it,  to  remove 
misconceptions,  to  dispel  confusion,  to  explain  diffi- 
culties, to  expose  error,  to  eliminate  false  interpre- 
tation, to  allay  doubt,  to  quiet  conscience,  to  benefit 
souls.  How  far  I  have  succeeded  remains  for  others 
to  judge.  That  in  the  discussion  of  so  many  difficult 
and  delicate  questions,  I  may  have  made  statements 
that  could  be  improved,  or  should  be  somewhat 
modified,  is  quite  possible.  But  if,  in  anything,  I 
have  been  wanting  in  accuracy  of  expression  ;  if  I 
have  misstated  a  fact  of  science,  or  misapprehended 
a  Dogma  of  faith  ;  I  shall  consider  it  a  special  favor 
to  have  my  attention  directed  to  what,  on  my  part, 
is  wholly  an  unintentional  error. 

It  will  not  do  to  say,  as  has  been  said,  that  the 
discussion,  whether  from  the  platform  or  elsewhere, 
of  such  topics  as  constitute  the  main  feature  of  this 
work,  is  inopportune  or  inexpedient.  If  the  rea- 
sons already  assigned  did  not  sufifice  to  justify  the 
expediency  and  opportuneness  of  such  discussions. 


XXVi  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  example  given  by  the  International  Catholic 
Scientific  Congress  ought  to  dispel  all  doubts  that 
might  be  still  entertained  on  the  subject.  For  on 
every  occasion  the  Congress  has  yet  assembled,  the 
discussion  of  evolutionary  topics  has  been  given 
special  prominence.  And  the  interest  exhibited  in 
such  discussions  was  not  confined  to  laymen  and 
specialists,  but  it  was  shared  in  by  distinguished 
prelates  and  scholars  of  international  reputation. 
They  recognized  the  necessity  of  having  all  possi- 
ble light  on  a  question  of  such  widespread  inter- 
est ;  of  seeking  by  all  possible  means  to  attain  the 
truth  respecting  a  subject  which  has  been  so  prolific 
of  error  and  has  proved  such  an  agency  for  evil. 
What  these  learned  and  zealous  men  deemed  it  wise 
to  do,  in  the  cultured  capitals  of  the  Old  World,  we 
certainly  can  and  ought  to  do  in  this  land  of  ours, 
where  ignorance  of  the  subject  in  question  is  more 
dense  and  where  knowledge  is  more  needed.  The 
fact  that  certain  propositions  in  this  work  have 
given  rise  to  such  misunderstandings,  and  have  led  to 
such  misdirected  controversy  and  such  useless  logo- 
machy as  have  prevailed  during  some  months  past, 
is  the  best  evidence  that  there  is  yet  much  to  be 
learned  regarding  what  is  so  often  incontinently 
condemned  without  a  hearing. 

The  great  trouble  now,  as  it  has  always  been,  is 
the  very  general  ignorance  of  the  elench  on  the  part 
of  those  who  pose  as  critics  of  Evolution  and  of  evo- 
lutionary theories.  Without  a  suflficient  knowledge  of 
the  facts  they  venture  to  discuss,  they  are  often  led 
to  make  statements  which  a  wider  acquaintance  with 


IN  TR  OD  UC  TION.  xx  vii 

nature  compels  them  to  retract.  Evolution,  how- 
ever, has  not  fared  differently  from  the  other  grand 
generalizations  that  now  constitute  the  foundations 
and  pillars  which  support  the  noble  and  imposing 
edifice  of  science.  The  Copernican  theory,  it  will 
be  remembered,  was  denounced  as  anti-Scriptural ; 
Newton's  discovery  of  universal  gravitation  was  con- 
demned  as  atheistic  ;  while  the  researches  of  geolo- 
gists were  decried  as  leading  to  infidelity,  and  as 
being  "  an  awful  evasion  of  the  testimony  of  Reve- 
lation." That  the  theory  of  Evolution  should  be 
obliged  to  pass  through  the  same  ordeal  as  awaited 
other  attempts  at  scientific  progress,  is  not  surprising 
to  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  history  of  science; 
but  it  is  not  a  little  strange  that  there  are  yet  among 
us  those  who  derive  such  little  profit  from  the 
lessons  of  the  past,  and  who  still  persist  in  the  futile 
attempt  to  solve  by  metaphysics  problems  which, 
by  their  very  nature,  can  be  worked  out  only  by  the 
methods  of  induction. 

Dr.  Whewell,  the  erudite  author  of  the  "  History 
of  the  Inductive  Sciences,"  was  wont  to  declare  that 
every  great  discovery  in  science  had  to  pass  through 
three  stages.  "  First  people  said,  '  It  is  absurd  ! ' 
then  they  said,  *  It  is  contrary  to  the  Bible ! '  and 
finally  they  said,  '  We  always  knew  it  was  so ! '  " 
The  truth  of  this  observation  of  the  famous  Master 
of  Trinity  is  well  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Evolu- 
tion. There  are  some  who  still  denounce  it  as  con- 
trary to  reason ;  there  are  others  who  honestly  believe 
that  it  contradicts  Scripture ;  while  there  are  not  a 
few,  and  the  number  is  rapidly  augmenting,  who  are 


xxviii  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

convinced  that  the  germs  of  the  Evolution  theory 
are  to  be  found  in  Genesis,  and  that  its  fundamental 
principles  were  recognized  by  Aristotle,  St.  Augus- 
tine and  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin.  The  final  result  of 
the  controversy  belongs  to  the  future.  If  the  the- 
ory which  has  excited  such  animosity,  and  provoked 
such  unbridled  disputes,  be  founded  on  the  facts  of 
nature,  it  will  ultimately  prevail,  as  truth  itself  will 
prevail  in  the  end  ;  if,  however,  it  repose  only  on 
assumption  and  unsupported  hypotheses,  if  it  have 
no  better  foundation  than  a  shifting  reef,  it  is 
doomed,  sooner  or  later,  to  the  fate  which  awaits 
everything  that  is  unwarranted  by  nature  or  is  at 
variance  with  truth. 

Strange  as  it  may  appear,  there  are  still  some 
well-meaning  people  who  foolishly  imagine,  that 
science,  when  too  profoundly  studied,  is  a  source  of 
danger  to  faith.  Such  a  notion  is  so  silly  as  scarcely 
to  deserve  mention.  Pope's  well-known  verse  :  "  A 
little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing,"  has  its  appli- 
cation here,  as  in  so  many  other  instances.  The 
familiar  quotation  from  Bacon  :  "A  little  philosophy 
inclineth  a  man's  mind  to  Atheism,  but  depth  in  phi- 
losophy bringeth  men's  minds  about  to  religion,"  ex- 
presses a  truth  which  holds  good  for  science  as  well 
as  for  philosophy.  Illustrations  of  the  truth  of  the 
second  part  of  this  statement  are  found  in  the  lives 
of  Copernicus,  Galileo,  Kepler,  Linnaeus,  Newton, 
Cuvier,  Cauchy,  Agassiz,  Barrande,  Leverrier  and 
numberless  others  of  the  world's  most  illustrious 
discoverers  and  most  profound  thinkers.  The  great 
Linnaeus,  than  whom    no  one  ever  studied  nature 


IN  TRODUC  TION.  xxix 

more  carefully  or  deeply,  saw  in  all  created  things, 
even  in  what  was  apparently  the  most  insignificant, 
evidences  of  the  power  and  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
God,  which  to  him  were  simply  overwhelming.'  And 
the  immortal  Pasteur,  whose  recent  death  a  whole 
world  mourns,  whose  exhaustive  study  of  nature  has 
been  a  subject  of  universal  comment  and  admiration, 
did  not  hesitate  towards  the  end  of  his  glorious  ca- 
reer to  declare,  that  careful  and  profound  study  in- 
spires in  one  the  deepest  and  the  most  childlike  faith, 
a  faith  like  unto  that  of  a  people  who  are  proverbial 
for  the  earnestness  and  simplicity  of  their  religious 
spirit,  the  faith  of  the  pious  and  unspoiled  inhabi- 
tants of  Catholic  Brittany. " 

In  one  of  his  sublime  pens^es,  Pascal,  applying 
the  method  of  Descartes  to  the  demonstration  of 
faith,  and  causing  this  instrument  of  science  to  con- 
found all  false  science,  declares  that  "  we  must  be- 
gin by  showing  that  religion  is  not  contrary  to  rea- 
son ;  then  that  it  is  venerable,  to  give  respect  for  it ; 
then  to  make  it  lovable,  and  to  make  good  men  hope 
that  it  is  true ;  then  to  show  that  it  is  true."  '   Some- 


'  In  the  introduction  to  his  "  Systema  Naturae,"  the  Swedish 
botanist  writes:  "  Deum  sempiternum,  inimensum,omniscientem, 
omnipotentem,  expergefactus  a  tergo  transeuntem  vidi  et  ob- 
stupui.  Legi  aliquot  ejus  vestigia  per  creata  rerum,  in  quibus 
omnibus,  etiam  in  minimis  ut  fere  nullis,  quae  vis  !  quanta  sap- 
ientia  !  quam  inextricabilis  perfectio  !  " 

"^ "  Quand  on  a  bien  ^tudid,"  the  renowned  savant  avers, 
"  on  revient  a  la  foi  du  paysan  breton.  Si  j'avais  etudie  plus  en- 
core, j'aurais  la  foi  de  la  paysanne  bretonne." 

' "  II  faut  commencer  par  montrer,  que  la  religion  n'est 
point  contraire  a  la  raison;  ensuite  qu'elle  est  venerable,  en 
donner  respect;  la  rendre  ensuite  aimable,  faire  souhaiter  aux 
bons  qu'elle  f6t  vraie ;  et  puis,  montrer  qu'elle  est  vraie." 


XXX  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  D  O  GMA . 

thing  akin  to  the  idea  contained  in  this  beautiful 
passage,  has  been  uppermost  in  my  mind  in  the  pen- 
ning of  the  following  pages.  A  kindred  thought 
has  been  dominant  in  every  topic  discussed.  It  has 
given  me  courage  to  undertake,  and  strength  to  com- 
plete, a  work  which  otherwise  would  never  have  been 
attempted,  and  which,  during  the  whole  course  of 
its  preparation,  I  would  fain  have  seen  intrusted  to 
more  competent  hands.  My  sole,  my  ardent  desire, 
has  been  to  show  that  there  is  nothing  in  true  sci- 
ence, nothing  in  any  of  the  theories  duly  accredited 
by  science  and  warranted  by  the  facts  of  nature, 
nothing  in  Evolution,  when  properly  understood, 
which  is  contrary  to  Scripture  or  Catholic  teaching ; 
that,  on  the  contrary,  when  viewed  in  the  light  of 
Christian  philosophy  and  theology,  there  is  much  in 
Evolution  to  admire,  much  that  is  ennobling  and 
inspiring,  much  that  illustrates  and  corroborates  the 
truths  of  faith,  much  that  may  be  made  ancillary  to 
revelation  and  religion,  much  that  throws  new  light 
on  the  mysteries  of  creation,  much  that  unifies  and 
coordinates  what  were  otherwise  disconnected  and 
disparate,  much  that  exalts  our  ideas  of  creative 
power  and  wisdom  and  love,  much,  in  fine,  that 
makes  the  whole  circle  of  the  sciences  tend,  as  never 
before,  ad  major  em  Dei  gloriam. 


PART  I. 

EVOLUTION.  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


CHAPTER  I. 

NATURE  AND  SCOPE  OF  EVOLUTION. 
Early  Speculation  Regarding  Nature  and  Man. 

FROM  time  immemorial  philosophers  and  stu- 
dents of  nature  have  exhibited  a  special  interest 
in  all  questions  pertaining  to  the  origin  of  man,  of 
the  earth  on  which  he  lives  and  of  the  universe  to 
which  he  belongs.  The  earliest  speculations  of  our 
Aryan  forefathers  were  about  the  beginnings  of 
things.  Questions  of  cosmology,  as  we  learn  from 
the  tablets  preserved  in  the  great  library  of  Assur- 
banipal  in  Nineveh,  received  their  meed  of  attention 
from  the  sages  of  ancient  Assyria  and  Babylonia. 
And  long  before  Assyria,  Babylonia  and  Chaldea  had 
reached  the  zenith  of  their  power,  and  before  they 
had  attained  that  intellectual  eminence  which  so 
distinguished  them  among  the  nations  of  the  ancient 
world,  the  peoples  of  Accad  and  Sumer  had  raised 
and  discussed  questions  of  geogony  and  cosmogony. 
They  were  a  philosophical  race,  these  old  Accadians 
and  Sumerians,  and,  as  we  learn  from  the  records 
which  are  constantly  being  exhumed  in  Mesopotamia, 

(«3) 


14  E  VOL  U TION  A  ND   DOGMA . 

they  had  a  breadth  of  view  and  an  acuteness  of  intel- 
lect, which,  considering  their  environment  and  the 
age  in  which  they  lived,  were  simply  astonishing. 
Well  have  they  been  called  "  the  teachers  of  Greece," 
for  all  the  subtlety  of  thought  and  keenness  of  per- 
ception, all  the  love  of  science,  art  and  letters,  which 
were  so  characteristic  of  the  Greek  mind,  were  pos- 
sessed in  an  eminent  degree  by  those  old  pre-Baby- 
lonian  masters  who  thought  and  taught  and  wrote 
many  long  generations  before  Abraham  left  Ur  of 
the  Chaldees,  untold  centuries  before  Thales  taught 
and  Homer  sang.  And  the  musings  of  the  mystic 
Hindu  along  the  banks  of  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges  ; 
the  meditations  of  the  Egyptian  priest  in  the  tem- 
ples of  Memphis  and  Heliopolis ;  the  speculations 
of  the  wise  men  of  Attica  and  Ionia,  all  turned  more 
or  less  on  the  same  topics  which  possessed  such  a 
fascination  for  the  sages  of  old  Chaldea,  and  which 
were  discussed  with  such  zest  in  the  schools  of 
Nineveh  and  Babylon. 

Whence  are  we?  Whither  are  we  going? 
Whence  this  earth  of  ours  and  the  plants  and  animals 
which  make  it  their  home  ?  Whence  the  sun,  and 
moon,  and  stars — those  distant  and  brilliant,  yet  mys- 
terious representatives  of  our  visible  universe?  Did 
they  have  a  beginning,  or  have  they  existed  from  all 
eternity  ?  And  if  they  had  a  beginning,  are  they 
the  same  now  as  they  were  when  they  first  came 
into  existence,  or  have  they  undergone  changes,  and, 
if  so,  what  are  the  nature  and  the  factors  of  such 
changes?  Are  the  development  and  mutations  of 
things  to  be  referred  to  the  direct  and  immediate 


NA TURB  AND  SCOPE  OF E  VOLUTION.      15 

action  of  an  all-powerful  Creator,  or  are  they  rather 
to  be  attributed  to  the  operation  of  certain  laws  of 
nature  —  laws  which  admit  of  determination  by 
human  reason,  and  which,  when  known,  serve  as  a 
norm  in  our  investigations  and  experiments  in  the 
organic  and  inorganic  worlds?  Are  there  special  in- 
terventions on  the  part  of  a  Supreme  Being  in 
the  government  of  the  universe,  and  are  we  to  look 
for  frequent,  if  not  constant,  exhibitions  of  the  mirac- 
ulous in  the  natural  world  ?  Has  God's  first  creation 
of  the  universe  and  all  it  contains,  of  the  earth  and 
all  that  inhabits  it,  been  followed  by  other  creations 
at  divers  periods,  and  if  so,  when  and  where  has  such 
creative  power  been  manifested  ? 

These  are  a  few  of  the  many  questions  about  the 
genesis  and  development  of  things  which  men  asked 
themselves  in  the  infancy  of  our  race.  And  these 
are  questions  which  philosophers  are  still  putting  to 
themselves,  and  which,  notwithstanding  the  many 
thousands  of  years  during  which  they  have  been 
under  discussion,  have  to-day  a  greater  and  more 
absorbing  interest  than  in  any  former  period  of 
human  history. 

It  is  beside  my  present  purpose  to  enumerate 
the  various  theories  in  science  to  which  the  discus- 
sion of  the  questions  just  propounded  have  given  rise, 
or  to  dwell  on  the  divers  systems  of  philosophy  and 
religion  which  have  been  the  natural  outgrowth  of 
such  or  similar  discussions.  Materialism,  Pantheism, 
Emanationism,  Hylozoism,  Traducianism,  Atheism 
and  other  isms  innumerable  have  always  been,  as  they 
are  to-day,  more  or  less  closely  identified  with  many 


16  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

of  the  speculations  regarding  the  origin  and  consti- 
tution of  the  visible  universe.  And  despite  the 
great  advances  which  have  been  made  in  our  knowl- 
edge of  nature  and  of  the  laws  which  govern  the 
organic  and  inorganic  worlds,  many  of  the  questions 
which  so  agitated  the  minds  of  the  philosophers  of 
the  olden  time,  are  still  as  far  from  solution  as  they 
were  when  first  proposed.  New  facts  and  new  dis- 
coveries have  placed  the  old  problems  in  a  new  light, 
but  have  diminished  none  of  their  difficulties.  On 
the  contrary,  the  brilliant  search-light  of  modern  sci- 
ence has  disclosed  new  difficulties  which  were  before 
invisible,  and  proved  that  those  which  were  consid- 
ered before  are  in  many  respedts  far  graver  than  was 
formerly  imagined.  With  the  advance  of  science, 
and  the  progress  of  discovery,  many  problems,  it  is 
true,  find  their  solution,  but  others,  hydra-like,  arise 
in  their  place  and  obtrude  themselves  on  the  scien- 
tist and  philosopher,  and  will  not  down  until  they 
have  received  due  recognition. 

Comprehensiveness  of  Evolution. 

To  answer  some,  if  not  all,  of  the  questions  just 
alluded  to  ;  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  the  cosmos  ; 
to  solve  the  problems  of  life  and  mind,  and  throw 
light  on  the  beginning  and  development  of  things, 
recourse  is  now  had  to  a  system  of  philosophy  and 
science  which,  within  the  last  few  decades,  has  at- 
tained a  special  vogue  under  the  name  of  Evolution- 
ism,  or,  as  its  adepts  prefer  to  call  it.  Evolution. 
Evolution,  we  are  assured,  is  the  magic  word  which 
explains  all  difficulties ;  the  "  open  sesame  "  which  ad- 


NA  TUBE  AND  SCOPE  OF  E  VOL  UTION.      17 

mits  us  into  the  innermost  arcana  of  nature.  We  are 
told  of  the  Evolution  of  the  earth,  of  the  Evolution 
of  the  solar  system,  of  the  Evolution  of  the  sidereal 
universe.  Men  discourse  on  the  Evolution  of  life, 
the  Evolution  of  the  organic  and  inorganic  worlds, 
the  Evolution  of  the  human  race.  We  have  simi- 
larly the  Evolution  of  society,  government,  religion, 
language,  art,  science,  architecture,  music,  literature, 
chemistry,  physics,  mathematics,  and  the  various 
other  branches  of  knowledge  as  well.  We  now  talk 
of  the  Evolution  of  the  steamboat,  the  locomotive, 
the  dynamo,  the  machine-gun,  the  telescope,  the 
yacht  and  the  bicycle.  All  that  ministers  to  com- 
fort, luxury  and  fashion  are  objects  of  Evolution. 
Hence  it  is  that  we  hear  people  speak  of  the  Evolu- 
tion of  the  modern  house-furnace  and  the  cooking- 
stove  ;  the  Evolution  of  the  coach  and  the  dog-cart ; 
the  Evolution  of  seal-skin  sacques,  high-heeled  shoes 
and  of  that  periodically  recurrent  bete  noire  of  fond 
husbands  and  indulgent  papas — the  latest  pat- 
tern of  a  lady's  hat.  Anything  which  has  developed 
or  improved — and  what  has  not  ? — is  spoken  of  as 
having  come  under  the  great  law  of  Evolution,  and, 
presto !  all  is  explained,  and  any  little  enigmas 
which  before  may  have  existed  instantly  vanish. 

As  is  evident  from  the  foregoing.  Evolution  may 
mean  a  great  deal,  or  it  may  mean  little  or  nothing. 
It  is  manifestly  a  term  of  very  general  application 
and  may  often  be  very  misleading.  Properly  under- 
stood it  may  be  of  signal  service  to  the  searcher  after 
truth,  while,  on  the  contrary,  if  it  is  constituted  an 
ever-ready  deus  ex  machina,  capable  of  solving  all 


l8  E  VOL  UtION  A ND  DOGMA. 

difficulties,  it  may  lead  to  inextricable  confusion  and 
tend  to  obscure  what  it  was  designed  to  illumine. 
It  is  obvious,  too,  that  we  must  restrict  the  meaning 
of  the  word  Evolution,  for  it  does  not  come  within 
the  scope  of  our  work  to  speak  of  Evolution  in  gen- 
eral. We  have  to  consider  only  a  particular  phase  of 
it,  and  for  this  purpose  it  is  important  to  have  a 
definition  of  what  is  meant  by  Evolution. 

Evolution  Defined. 

Herbert  Spencer,  who  is  regarded  by  his  admirers 
as  the  great  philosopher  of  Evolution,  defines  it  to  be 
a  "change  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homogene- 
ity, to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity;  through 
continuous  differentiations  and  integrations.'  And 
the  operation  of  Evolution,"  continues  the  same  au- 
thority, "is  absolutely  universal.  Whether  it  be  in 
the  development  of  the  earth,  in  the  development  of 
life  upon  its  surface,  in  the  development  of  society, 
of  government,  of  manufactures,  of  commerce,  of  lan- 
guage, of  literature,  science,  art,  this  same  advance 
from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  through  successive 
differentiations,  holds  uniformly.  From  the  earliest 
traceable  cosmical  changes  down  to  the  latest  re- 
sults of  civilization,  we  shall  find  that  the  transfor- 
mation of  the  homogeneous  into  the  heterogeneous, 
is  that  in  which  Evolution  essentially  consists,'" 

Spencer's  definition,  however,  exact  as  it  may  be 
deemed,  embraces  far  more  than  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  consider,  for  my  task  shall  be  confined 

*"  First  Principles,"  p,  216. 
» Id.— p.  148. 


J^-A  rURE  AND  SCOPE  OF  E  VOL  UTION.      19 

to  the  Evolution  of  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants,  and 
only  incidentally  shall  I  refer  to  cosmic  Evolution. 
Indeed,  properly  speaking,  the  Evolution  of  which  I 
shall  treat  shall  be  limited  almost  entirely  to  organic 
Evolution,  or  the  Evolution  of  the  plants  and  ani- 
mals which  live  or  have  lived  on  this  earth  of  ours. 
All  references,  therefore,  to  the  Evolution  of  the 
earth  itself  from  its  primeval  nebulous  state,  and  to 
the  Evolution  of  organic  from  inorganic  matter,  will 
be  mostly  by  way  of  illustration,  and  in  order  to 
show  that  there  is  no  breach  of  continuity  between 
organic  Evolution,  which  is  my  theme,  and  inorganic 
or  cosmic  Evolution. 

Literature  of  Evolution. 

The  subject  is  a  vast  one,  and  to  treat  it  ade- 
quately would  require  far  more  space  than  I  have  at 
my  disposal.  It  has  indeed  a  literature  and  a  bibli- 
ography of  its  own — a  literature  whose  proportions 
are  already  stupendous,  and  are  daily,  and  with 
amazing  rapidity,  becoming  more  collossal.  For 
the  past  third  of  a  century,  since  the  publication  of 
Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species,"  it  has  been  uppermost 
in  the  minds  of  everyone  given  to  thinking  on  seri- 
ous subjects.  Everybody  talks  about  Evolution,  and 
more  write  about  it  than  about  any  other  one  subject. 

More  than  five  thousand  distinct  works,  relating 
to  Goethe,  who  died  in  1832,  have,  it  is  estimated, 
already  been  printed,  and  additions  are  continually 
being  made  to  this  enormous  number.  Peignot,  who 
wrote  in  1822,  declared  that  up  to  his  day  more  than 
eighty  thousand  distinct  works  had  appeared  on  the 


20  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

history  of  France.  The  number  of  volumes  that 
have  been  written  on  our  Civil  War  can  soon  be 
enumerated  by  myriads,  and  still  other  works  on  the 
same  subject  are  being  published  in  rapid  succession. 
Startling,  however,  as  these  figures  may  appear,  they 
are  insignificant  in  comparison  with  those  relating 
to  the  subject  of  Evolution.  In  every  language  of 
the  civilized  world,  books,  brochures,  and  maga- 
zine articles  innumerable,  have  been  written  on  Evo- 
lution, and  the  number  of  publications  of  various 
kinds  specially  treating  of  this  topic  is  now  almost 
beyond  computation. 

Such  being  the  case,  it  will  evidently  be  impos- 
sible for  me  to  do  more  than  give  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  history  of  Evolution,  and  of  its  status  to-day  in 
the  world  of  thought,  religious,  scientific  and  philo- 
sophic. It  is  something  that  one  cannot  develop 
dans  un  mot,  as  a  certain  French  lady  expected  of  a 
noted  savant,  when  asking  him  to  explain  his  system 
of  philosophy.  For  a  similar  reason,  also,  I  can  dis- 
cuss but  briefly  the  bearings  of  Evolution  on  religion 
and  Catholic  dogma.  I  shall,  therefore,  have  to  limit 
myself  to  a  few  general  propositions,  and  refer  those 
who  desire  a  more  exhaustive  treatment  of  the  sub- 
jects discussed,  to  the  many  elaborate  and  learned 
works  that  have  been  given  to  the  world  during  the 
past  few  decades. 

Freedom  Prom  Bias  in  the  Discussion  of  Evolution. 

I  may  here  be  permitted,  before  going  further,  to 
remind  the  reader  that  it  is  of  prime  importance,  in 
the  discussion  of  the  subject  of  Evolution,  especially 


NA  TURE  AND  SCOPE  OF  E  VOL  UTION.      21 

in  its  relation  to  religion  and  dogma,  for  one  to 
weigh  fairly  and  dispassionately  the  arguments  and 
objections  of  evolutionists,  and  to  divest  one's  self 
of  all  bias  that  may  proceed  from  prejudice  or  early 
education,  to  consider  the  question  on  its  merits,  and 
not  to  let  one's  mind  be  swayed  by  preconceived,  or 
it  may  be,  by  erroneous  notions.  Let  the  value  of 
the  evidence  adduced  be  estimated  by  the  rules  of 
logic  and  in  the  light  of  reason.  This  is  essential. 
In  the  discussion  of  the  subject  during  the  past 
thirty  and  odd  years  much  has  been  said  in  the  heat 
of  controversy,  and  on  both  sides,  that  had  no 
foundation  in  fact.  There  have  been  much  exagger- 
ation  and  misrepresentation,  which  have  given  rise  to 
difficulties  and  complications  that  might  easily  have 
been  avoided  if  the  disputants  on  both  sides  had 
always  been  governed  by  a  love  of  truth,  and  the 
strict  rules  of  dialectics,  rather  than  by  passion  and 
the  spirit  of  party.  Misguided  zeal  and  ignorance 
of  the  true  teachings  of  the  Church,  always  betray 
one  into  making  statements  which  have  no  founda- 
tion in  fact,  but,  in  the  discussions  to  which  the  sub- 
ject of  Evolution  has  given  rise,  there  has  often  been 
exhibited,  by  both  the  defendants  and  the  opponents 
of  the  theory,  a  lack  of  fairness  and  a  bitterness  of 
feeling  that  are  certainly  not  characteristic  of  those 
whose  sole  desire  is  the  attainment  of  truth.  Such 
polemics  have  injured  both  parties,  and  have  delayed 
a  mutual  understanding  that  should  have,  and  would 
have,  been  reached  years  ago  if  the  ordinary  rules  of 
honest  controversy  had  always  been  inviolably 
observed. 


22  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Now  that  the  smoke  of  battle  is  beginning  to 
vanish,  and  that  the  participants  in  the  contest  have 
time  to  reckon  results  and  to  look  back  to  the  causes 
which  precipitated  the  struggle,  it  is  found,  and  I 
think  generally  conceded,  that  certain  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  science  were  the  ones  who  brought  on 
an  imbroglio  for  which  there  was  not  the  slightest 
justification.  But  it  is  the  old  story  over  again — 
hatred  of  religion  concealed  behind  some  new  dis- 
covery of  science  or  enveloped  in  some  theory  that, 
for  the  nonce,  was  raised  to  the  dignity  of  an  indis- 
putable dogma.  It  was  not,  it  is  true,  so  much  the 
chief  representatives  of  science  who  were  to  blame 
as  some  of  their  ill-advised  asseclce,  who  saw  in  the 
new  teachings  an  opportunity  of  achieving  notoriety, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  of  venting  their  spleen  against 
the  Church  and  casting  obloquy  on  religion  and 
Scripture. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EARLY   EVOLUTIONARY  VIEWS. 
First  Studies  of  Nature. 

EVOLUTION,  as  we  now  know  it,  is  a  product 
of  the  latter  half  of  the  present  century.  It 
would;  however,  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  Min- 
erva-like it  came  forth  from  the  brain  of  Darwin  or 
Spencer,  or  that  of  anyone  else,  as  the  fully-developed 
theory  which  has  caused  so  great  a  stir  in  the  intel- 
lectual world.  No  ;  Evolution,  as  a  theory,  is  not  the 
work  of  one  man,  nor  the  result  of  the  work  of  any 
body  of  men  that  could  be  designated  by  name. 
Neither  is  it  the  product  of  any  one  generation  or 
epoch.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been  the  joint  achieve- 
ment, if  such  it  can  be  called,  of  countless  think- 
ers and  observers  and  experimenters  of  many  climes 
and  of  many  centuries.  It  is  the  focus  towards  which 
many  and  divers  lines  of  thought  have  converged 
from  the  earliest  periods  of  speculation  and  scientific 
research  down  to  our  own.  The  sages  of  India  and 
Babylonia;  the  priests  of  Egypt  and  Assyria;  the 
philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome ;  the  Fathers  of 
the  early  Church  and  the  Schoolmen  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  as  well  as  the  scholars  and  discoverers  of  sub- 
sequent ages,  contributed  toward  the  estabHshment 
of  the  theory  on  the  basis  on  which  it  now  reposes. 

(23) 


24  EVOLU TION  A ND  DOGMA . 

This  being  the  case,  it  will  help  us  to  a  more 
intelligent  appreciation  of  the  theory  to  take  a  brief 
retrospect  of  the  work  accomplished  by  the  earlier 
workers  in  the  field,  and  to  review  some  of  the  more 
important  observations  and  discoveries  which  led  up 
to  the  promulgation  of  Evolution  as  a  theory  of  the 
universal  application  which  is  now  claimed  for  it. 
Such  a  review  will  likewise  serve  another  purpose. 
We  are  often  disposed  to  imagine  that  all  the  great 
discoveries  and  generalizations  in  science  are  entirely 
the  result  of  modern  thought  and  investigation.  We 
forget  that  the  way  has  been  prepared  for  us  by 
those  who  questioned  nature  thousands  of  years  ago, 
but  who,  not  having  the  advantages  or  appliances 
of  modern  research,  were  unable  to  possess  them- 
selves of  her  secrets.  We  underrate  and  disparage 
the  work  of  the  earlier  students  and  speculators,  be- 
cause we  are  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  they  planted 
the  germ  which  we  see  developed  into  the  full-grown 
tree,  because  we  do  not  realize  that  we  are  reaping 
what  others  have  sown.  All  great  movements  in 
the  world  of  thought  are,  we  should  remember, 
simply  the  integration  of  infinitesimals;  the  sum- 
mation of  an  almost  infinite  series  of  factors  which 
are  ordinarily  ignored  or  disregarded.  The  success- 
ful generalizer  and  the  framer  of  legitimate  scientific 
theories  are,  as  a  rule,  those  who  avail  themselves 
of  the  data  and  patient  indications  of  others,  who 
accumulate  and  correlate  disjointed  and  independent 
observations  which,  separately  considered,  have  little 
or  no  value,  and  which  tell  us  little  or  nothing  of 
the  operations  of  nature  and  nature's  laws.     Thus 


EA RL r  EVOLU TIONA R Y  VIE WS.  25 

Kepler's  laws  were  based  on  the  observations  of 
Tycho  Brahe ;  Newton's  great  discovery  of  the  law 
of  universal  gravitation  was  founded  on  Abb^  Pic- 
ard's  measurenaent  of  the  earth's  meridian;  and 
Leverrier's  discovery  of  the  planet  Neptune  was 
suggested  by  the  perturbations  which  various  astron- 
omers had  observed  in  the  motion  of  Uranus.  So, 
too,  is  it,  but  to  a  greater  extent,  in  respect  of 
the  theory  of  Evolution.  It  is  the  result  not  only 
of  the  observations  of  the  immediate  predecessors 
of  those  who  are  now  regarded  as  the  founders  of 
the  theory,  but  of  data  which  have  been  amassed 
and  of  reflections  which  philosophers  have  been 
making  since  our  Aryan  forefathers  first  began  to  in- 
terrogate nature  and  seek  a  rational  explanation  of 
the  various  mutations  which  were  observed  to  char- 
acterize the  earth's  surface  and  its  inhabitants. 

Evolution  Among  the  Greeks. 

Thales,  who  was  one  of  the  first  philosophers 
that  attempted  a  natural  explanation  of  the  uni- 
verse, in  lieu  of  the  myths  which  had  so  long  ob- 
tained, taught  that  all  life  had  its  origin  in  water. 
Anaximander,  who  flourished  six  centuwes  B.C., 
seems  to  forestall  certain  evolutionary  theories 
which  were  taught  twenty-five  hundred  years  later. 
"  The  first  animals,"  ra  -rpwra  Cwa,  he  tells  us,  "  were 
begotten  in  moisture  and  earth."  Man,  according 
to  the  same  philosopher,  "  must  have  been  born  from 
animals  of  a  difTerent  form,  i^  aXXoktdwv  ^mmv,  for, 
whereas  other  animals  easily  get  their  food  by  them- 
selves, man  alone  requires  long  rearing.    Hence,  had 


26  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

man  been  originally  such  as  he  is  now,  he  could  never 
have  survived."  He  first  propounded  the  theory  of 
"  fish-men,"  which,  in  a  modified  form,  was  adopted 
by  Oken.  Anaximenes,  a  pupil  of  Anaximander, 
made  air  the  cause  of  all  things,  while  Diogenes 
of  Appolonia  held  that  all  forms  of  animal  and 
plant  life  originated  from  primordial  slime  —  the 
prototype  of  Oken's  famous  Urschleim.  Anaxagoras 
sought  the  beginnings  of  animated  nature  in  germs 
which  preexisted  in  nature,  and  were  distributed 
throughout  the  air  and  ether.  In  Empedocles,  who 
is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  father  of  the  Evolu- 
tion idea,  we  find  the  germ  of  what  Darwin  calls 
"  natural  selection,"  *  and  what  Spencer  denominates 
"the  survival  of  the  fittest."  With  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Ionian  schools,  he  was  a  believer  in 
spontaneous  generation,  or  abiogenesis,  but  he  ap- 
proximated more  closely  to  the  teachings  of  modern 
Evolution  than  did  any  of  his  predecessors  or  con- 
temporaries. He  recognized  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  the  higher  from  the  lower  forms  of  life,  and 
taught  that  plants  made  their  appearance  before 
animals. 

Aristotle's  Observations. 

But  the  greatest  of  the  Greek  naturalists,  as  he 
was  also  the  greatest   of   Greek   philosophers,-  was 


^  In  his  "Physics,"  II,  cap.  viii,  Aristotle  refers  to  natural 
selection  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  as  taught  by  Empedocles 
and  others,  as  follows  :  "  For  when  the  very  same  combinations 
happened  to  be  produced  which  the  law  of  final  causes  would  have 
called  into  being,  those  combinations  which  proved  to  be  advan- 
tageous to  the  organism  were  preserved ;  while  those  which 
were  not  advantageous  perished,  and  still  perish,  like  the  mino- 
taurs  and  sphinxes  of  Empedocles," 


EARLT  EVOLUTIONARY  VIEWS.  27 

Aristotle.  Unlike  Plato,  who  laid  special  stress  on 
a  priori  reasoning  as  the  source  of  true  knowledge, 
even  in  the  natural  and  physical  sciences,  he  insisted 
on  observation  and  experiment.  "  We  must  not," 
he  tells  us  in  his  "  History  of  Animals,"  "accept  a 
general  principle  from  logic  only,  but  must  prove  its 
application  to  each  fact.  For  it  is  in  facts  that  we 
must  seek  general  principles,  and  these  must  always 
accord  with  facts.  Experience  furnishes  the  partic- 
ular facts  from  which  deduction  is  the  pathway  to 
general  laws." 

When  we  consider  how  happy  the  Stagirite  was 
in  his  generalizations  from  the  meager  facts  at  his 
command,  how  remarkable  was  his  prevision  of 
some  of  the  most  important  results  of  modern 
investigation,  how  he  had  not  only  a  true  concep- 
tion of  the  modern  ideas  of  Evolution,  but  had 
likewise  a  clear  perception  of  the  principle  of  adap- 
tation, when  we  remember  that  he  was  cognizant 
of  the  analogies,  and  probably  also  of  the  homol- 
ogies between  the  different  parts  of  an  organism, 
that  he  was  aware  of  the  phenomena  of  atavism  and 
reversion  and  heredity,  and  that  he  foreshadowed 
the  theory  of  epigenesis  in  embryonic  development, 
as  taught  by  Harvey  long  ages  afterwards,  when  v/e 
call  to  mind  all  these  things,  we  are  forced,  I  re- 
peat, to  conclude  that  the  immortal  Greek  not  only 
fully  understood  the  value  of  induction  as  an  instru- 
ment of  research,  but  also  that  he  was  quite  as  suc- 
cessful in  its  use,  considering  his  limited  appliances 
for  work,  as  was  any  one  of  his  successors  who  lived 
and  labored  in  more  favored  times. 


28  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

He,  then,  and  not  Empedocles,  should  be  re- 
garded as  the  father  of  the  Evolution  theory.  The 
poet-naturalist  of  Agrigentum  made,  indeed,  some 
observations  in  embryology,  the  first  recorded, 
and  may  thus  have  been  led  to  some  of  his  fortu- 
nate guesses  at  the  truth  of  Evolution  ;  but  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  most,  if  not  all  of  his  theories, 
were  based  on  a  priori  speculation  rather  than  on 
experiment.  He  had  by  no  means  the  wide  ac- 
quaintance with  nature  which  so  distinguished  Aris- 
totle ;  neither  did  he  possess  the  logical  acumen, 
nor  the  skill  in  inductive  reasoning  we  so  much 
admire  in  the  Samian  philosopher.  So  far  as  was 
possible  in  his  time,  the  Stagirite  based  his  evo- 
lutionary views  on  observation  and  experiment, 
rather  than  on  metaphysical  ratiocination,  and 
this  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  any  of  his  prede- 
cessors, whether  of  the  Ionian,  Pythagorean  or 
Eleatic  schools,  or  of  those  immediately  subse- 
quent.' 

Mediaeval  Writers. 

The  foregoing  views  of  the  Greek  philosophers 
found  acceptance  at  a  later  date  with  the  philoso- 
phers of  Rome,  and  prevailed,  with  but  slight  modi- 
fications, during  the  entire  period  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  They  were  commented  on  by  a  number  of 
Arabian  writers,  notably  Avicenna,  Avempace,  Abu- 


'  For  an  exhaustive  exposition  of  the  views  of  the  Greeks,  on 
the  subjects  discussed  in  the  foregoing  paragraphs,  consult  Zel- 
ler's  "  Philosophy  of  the  Greeks."  See  also  Ueberweg's  "His- 
tory of  Philosophy." 


EARLT  EVOLUTWNART   VIEWS.  29 

bacer,'  and  Omar  "  the  learned,"  as  well  as  by  many 
of  the  Schoolmen,  especially  Albertus  Magnus.  The 
last-named  scholar  was  remarkable  for  his  extended 
knowledge  of  nature.  Besides  discussing  the  theo- 
ries which  had  been  framed  by  his  predecessors,  he 
was  a  keen  observer  and  skillful  experimenter,  and 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  he  contributed  more 
towards  the  advance  of  science  than  anyone  who 
had  lived  since  the  time  of  Aristotle. 

The  illustrious  pupil  of  Albertus  Magnus,  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  deserves  a  special  mention  here 
for  his  teachings  respecting  organic  Evolution.  Ac- 
cepting the  views  of  Aristotle,  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa 
and  St.  Augustine,  regarding  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  animal  and  plant  life,  he  laid  down  principles 
concerning  derivative  or  secondary  creations,  which 


'In  a  curious  philosophical  romance  Abubacer  writes  as 
follows  on  the  birth  of  what  he  designates  the  "  nature-man  :  " 
"There  happens  to  be,"  he  says,  "  under  the  equator  an  island, 
where  man  comes  into  the  world  without  father  or  mother.  By 
spontaneous  generation  he  arises  directly,  in  the  form  of  a  boy, 
from  the  earth,  while  the  spirit,  which,  like  sunshine,  emanates 
from  God.  unites  with  the  body,  growing  out  of  a  soft,  unformed 
mass.  Without  any  intelligent  surroundings,  and  without  educa- 
tion, this  '  nature-man,'  through  simple  observation  of  the  outer 
world,  and  through  the  combination  of  various  appearances,  rises 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  the  Godhead.  First,  he 
perceives  the  individual,  and  then  he  recognizes  the  various 
species  as  independent  forms,  but  as  he  compares  the  varieties 
and  species  with  each  other,  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
they  are  all  sprung  from  a  single  animal  spirit,  and,  at  the  same 
time  that  the  entire  animal  race  forms  a  single  whole.  He 
makes  the  same  discovery  among  the  plants,  and  finally  he  sees 
the  animal  and  plant  forms  in  their  unity,  and  discovers  that 
among  all  their  differences  they  have  sensitiveness  and  feeling 
in  common  ;  from  which  he  concludes  that  animals  and  plants 
are  only  one  and  the  same  thing."  How  like  unto  many  mod- 
ern speculations  this  fancy  of  the  old  Arab  philosopher  ! 


30  B  VOL  UTION  A  XD  DOGMA . 

scientists  and  theologians  now  recognize  to  be  of  ines- 
timable value.  As  we  shall  have  occasion ,  in  the  sequel, 
to  examine  at  length  the  teachings  of  the  Angelic  Doc- 
tor on  this  topic,  it  will  suffice  for  the  present  sim- 
ply to  advert  to  them,  and  to  signalize  in  advance 
their  transcendent  importance. 


CHAPTER  III. 

FOSSILS   AND   GIANTS. 
Early  Notions  Regarding  Fossils. 

IN  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  geolog- 
ical  phenomena  began  to  attract  more  attention 
than  they  had  hitherto  received.  Special  interest 
was  centered  in  fossils,  which  were  so  universally 
distributed  over  the  earth's  surface,  and  their  study 
contributed  materially  towards  placing  the  theory 
of  Evolution  on  a  firmer  basis  than  it  ever  before 
possessed.  Aristotle  and  other  Greek  writers  had, 
indeed,  made  mention  of  them,  but  did  not,  as  it 
appears,  devote  to  them  any  particular  study. 

Theophrastus,  a  pupil  of  Aristotle,  supposed 
them  to  be  due  to  "a  certain  plastic  virtue"  of  the 
earth,  which  possessed  the  power  of  fashioning 
inorganic  matter  into  organic  forms. 

The  distinguished  painter,  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
one  of  the  most  gifted  men  that  ever  lived,  was 
among  the  first  to  dispute  the  absurd  theories  which 
were  currently  accepted  regarding  the  nature  and 
origin  of  fossils.  "  They  tell  us,"  he  says,  "  that  these 
shells  were  formed  in  the  hills  by  the  influence- 
of  the  stars  ;  but  I  ask,  where  in  the  hills  are  the  stars 
now  forming  shells  of  distinct  ages  and  species  ? 
And  how  can  the  stars  explain  the  origin  of  gravel, 

(31) 


32  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

occurring  at  different  heights  and  composed  of  peb- 
bles rounded  as  by  the  motion  of  running  water ;  or 
in  what  manner  can  such  a  cause  account  for  the 
petrification  in  the  same  places  of  various  leaves, 
sea-weeds  and  marine  crabs?" 

Fracostoro,  a  contemporary  of  Da  Vinci,  followed 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  illustrious  artist,  and  taught 
that  fossils  were  the  exuviae  of  animals  that  former- 
ly lived  where  their  remains  are  now  found.  He 
showed  the  futility  of  the  opinion  then  prevalent 
which  attributed  fossils  to  the  action  of  the  Noa- 
chian  Deluge,  which,  according  to  the  ideas  then  en- 
tertained, not  only  strewed  the  earth's  surface  with 
the  remains  of  the  animals  which  were  destroyed, 
but  also  buried  them  at  great  depths  on  the  highest 
mountains. 

Clear  and  cogent  arguments  like  those  adduced 
by  Da  Vinci  and  Fracostoro  should  have  sufficed  to 
end  all  controversy  regarding  the  true  nature  of 
fossils,  but  unfortunately  for  the  cause  of  science 
the  dispute  was  destined  to  last  nearly  three  cen- 
turies longer.  All  sorts  of  imaginary  causes  were 
feigned  to  account  for  the  petrified  organic  forms 
everywhere  abundant,  and  no  theory  was  too  fantas- 
tical to  attract  supporters,  provided  only  it  was  not 
antagonistic  to  the  notions  of  geogony  and  cos- 
mogony then  popularly  received. 

Thus,  according  to  Agricola,  fossils  were  the  prod- 
uct of  a  certain  materia  pinguis,  or  fatty  matter, 
set  in  fermentation  by  heat ;  porous  bodies,  like 
bones  and  shells,  according  to  Mattioli,  were  petri- 
fied by  what   he  designated   a   "lapidifying  juice," 


J^OSSILS  AND  GIANTS.  33 

while  according  to  Fallopio,  of  Padua,  petrified 
shells  were  produced  by  the  "  tumultuous  move- 
ments of  the  terrestrial  exhalations."  Olivi,  of 
Cremona,  considered  fossils  as  mere  lusus  naiurce, 
or  "  sports  of  nature,"  while  others  regarded 
them  as  mere  stones  which  "  had  assumed  their 
peculiar  configuration  by  the  action  of  some  oc- 
cult '  internal  principle '  from  the  influence  of 
the  heavenly  bodies;"  and  others  still  maintained 
that  they  were  bodies  formed  by  nature  "  for  no 
other  end  than  to  play  the  mimic  in  the  mineral 
kingdom." 

That  such  fanciful  notions  regarding  the  nature 
of  fossils  could  ever  have  been  seriously  entertained 
by  men  of  sound  judgment  now  seems  almost  inex- 
plicable. But  if  we  reflect  a  moment  we  shall  see 
that  almost  equally  ridiculous  views  of  nature  are 
held  by  even  eminent  men  of  science  at  the  present 
day.  As  for  the  students  of  nature  who  lived  some 
centuries  ago,  it  may  be  pleaded  in  extenuation  of 
the  errors  into  which  they  lapsed,  that  some  of  the 
theories  which  they  deemed  to  be  beyond  question 
appeared  to  give  color  to  their  beliefs. 

Among  these  was  the  theory  of  spontaneous  gen- 
eration, or  the  theory  that  certain  living  plants  and 
animals  are  produced  spontaneously  from  inorganic 
matter,  or  spring  from  organic  matter  in  a  state  of 
decomposition.  And  then,  too,  they  were  confirmed 
in  their  views  by  observing  the  peculiar  forms  as- 
sumed by  stalactites  and  stalagmites  which  grew 
under  their  very  eyes ;  by  the  strange  figures  found 
in  agates,    notably   the    moss   agate,   and    the    still 

E.-3 


34  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Stranger  figures  which  often  characterize  what  is 
known  as  landscape  marble,  in  which  trees,  castles, 
mountains  and  other  objects  are  frequently  depicted 
with  striking  fidelity. 

But  in  spite  of  the  yoke  of  authority,  especially 
of  Aristotle,  which  bore  heavily  upon  the  students  of 
science,  and  notwithstanding  the  generally  received 
teaching,  often  based  on  the  Bible,  to  oppose  which 
required  considerable  courage,  new  views  were  slowly 
but  surely  supplanting  the  old.  And  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  it  was  not  some  philosopher  who  was  the 
first  to  proclaim  the  truth,  but  the  celebrated  pot- 
ter, Bernard  Palissy.  "  He  was  the  first,"  says  Fon- 
tenelle,  "  who  dared  assert  in  Paris  that  fossil  re- 
mains of  testacea  and  fish  had  belonged  to  marine 
animals." 

Italian  Geologists  on  Fossils. 

A  century  after  Palissy's  time,  in  1669,  Nicholas 
Steno,  a  Danish  Catholic  priest,  showed  the  identity 
of  the  teeth  and  bones  of  sharks  then  living  in  the 
Mediterranean  with  those  of  fossil  remains  found  in 
Tuscany.  "  He  also  compared  the  shells  discovered 
in  the  Italian  strata  with  living  species ;  pointed  out 
their  resemblance  and  traced  the  various  grada- 
tions from  shells  which  had  only  lost  their  animal 
gluten,  to  those  petrifactions  in  which  there  was  a 
perfect  substitution  of  stony  matter." 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  the  observations  of 
such  men  as  Steno,  Palissy,  and  others,  the  old  no- 
tions, according  to  which  fossils  were  the  products 
of  a  certain  plastic  virtue  latent  in  nature,  or  were 


FOSSILS  AND  GIANTS.  35 

deposited  in  situ  by  Noah's  flood,  still  found  favor 
with  the  majority  of  geologists.  This  was  especially 
the  case  with  the  physico-theological  writers  of  Eng- 
land, who,  in  spite  of  the  discoveries  of  the  Italian  ge- 
ologists, still  persisted  in  accommodating  all  geolog- 
ical phenomena  to  their  fanciful  interpretations  of  the 
Scriptural  accounts  of  the  Creation  and  the  Deluge. 
Thus  Woodward  taught  that  "  the  whole  terrestrial 
globe  was  taken  to  pieces  and  dissolved  by  the 
Flood,"  and  that  subsequently  the  strata  "  settled 
down  from  this  promiscuous  mass  as  any  earthy 
sediment  from  a  flood." 

Such  views  were  in  marked  contrast  with  those 
held  by  the  learned  Carmelite  friar,  Generelli,  who 
strongly  argued  against  the  unreasonableness  of 
calling  "  the  Deity  capriciously  upon  the  stage,  to 
make  Him  work  miracles  for  the  sake  of  confirming 
our  preconceived  hypotheses."  He  insisted  on  it 
that  natural  causes  were  competent  to  explain  geo- 
logical phenomena,  and  to  account  for  the  occurrence 
of  fossil  remains  on  hills  and  mountains.  In  refer- 
ring to  the  formation  of  mountains  and  their  denu- 
dation by  the  action  of  the  elerrients,  he  forestalls  the 
teachings  of  modern  geologists  when  he  declares 
"  that  the  same  cause  which,  in  the  beginning  of 
time,  raised  mountains  from  the  abyss,  has  down  to 
the  present  day  continued  to  produce  others,  in 
order  to  restore  from  time  to  time  the  losses  of  all 
such  as  sink  down  in  different  places,  or  are  rent 
asunder,  or  in  other  ways  suffer  disintegration."  ' 


See  Lyell's  "  Principles  of  Geology,"  vol.  I,  p.  54. 


36  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Legends  About  Giants. 

As  illustrating  the  difficulties  which  students  of 
science  had  to  contend  with,  I  may  here  refer  to 
another  curious  but  deeply-rooted  notion  that  long 
prevailed  regarding  certain  fossils.  Accepting  as 
certain  the  ordinary  interpretation  of  the  Hebrew 
word  nephilim,  'D''^''Q?^  in  Genesis,  vi,  4,  as  mean- 
ing giants,  or  persons  of  extraordinary  stature,  and 
taking  as  literal  the  mythical  or  exaggerated  ac- 
counts of  giants  who  were  reputed  tQ  have  lived 
in  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  the  discoverers  of 
large  fossil  bones  had  no  hesitation  in  pronouncing 
them  the  remains  of  some  one  or  other  great  giant 
of  legendary  lore. 

Greek  and  Roman  authors,  no  less  than  German, 
French  and  English  writers  at  a  much  later  period, 
give  us  very  detailed  descriptions  of  the  remains  of 
giants  discovered  in  various  quarters  of  the  earth. 
The  bones  found  in  one  place,  were,  it  was  asserted, 
those  of  Antaeus  or  Orestes,  those  in  another,  of 
the  giant  Og,  King  of  Bashan,  while  those  of  still 
another  locality  were  identified  as  the  skeleton  of 
the  famous  Teutobocchus,  king  of  the  Teutons  and 
Cimbri,  who  was  defeated  by  the  Roman  general, 
Marius.  According  to  the  accounts  which  have 
come  down  to  us,  the  teeth  of  these  giants  each 
weighed  several  pounds  and  were  in  some  instances 
as  much  as  a  foot  long,  while  the  estimated  stature 
of  others  of  the  giants  whose  remains  are  described 
was  no  less  than  sixty  cubits.  Later  investigators, 
however,  had  no  difficulty  in  showing  that  the  sup- 
posed teeth  of  giants  were  nothing  other  than  the 


FOSS/LS  AND  GIANTS.  37 

molars  of  some  extinct  elephant  or  mammoth ;  that 
what  were  regarded  as  the  vertebrae  and  femurs  of 
Titans  and  giants  belonged  in  reality  to  certain 
monstrous  pachyderms  long  since  extinct,  and  that 
what  was  exhibited  as  the  hand  of  one  of  the  huge 
representatives  of  the  human  family  proved,  on  ex- 
amination, to  be  the  bones  of  the  fore-fin  of  a  whale. 
And,  as  science  advanced,  it  was  finally  discovered 
that  there  had  never  been  any  material  difference  in 
the  stature  of  men,  that  the  races  of  antiquity  were 
no  taller  than  those  now  existing,  and  that  there  is 
no  evidence  whatever  that  there  were  ever,  at  any 
period  of  the  world's  history,  men  of  greater  stature 
than  those  occasionally  seen  in  our  own  day.' 

But  notwithstanding  the  progress  of  discovery, 
people  were  loath  to  give  up  their  belief  in  giants,  as 
they  were  unwilling  to  change  their  opinions  respect- 
ing the  plastic  power  of  the  earth  and  the  universally 
exterminating  effects  of  the  Flood.  Men  who  be- 
lieved in  the  existence  of  griffons  and  flying  dragons, 
and  who  regarded  the  horns  of  fossil  rhinoceroses,  so 
numerous  in  parts  of  Europe  and  Asia,  as  the  claws 
of  griffons  and  as  certain  proofs  of  the  existence  of 
these  fabled  creatures,  could  not  be  blamed  if  they 
gave  more  or  less  credence  to  the  countless  tradi- 
tionary tales  respecting  Titans  and  giants. 

True  Significance  of  Fossils. 

The  true  significance  of  fossils,  however,  was  not 
understood  until  the  time  of  Cuvier,  the  illustrious 


*  See  Howorth's  "  Mammoth  and  the  Flood,"  chaps,  i  and  ii, 
and  Wood's  "  Giants  and  Dwarfs." 


38  EVOLU TION  A ND  D OGMA . 

founder  of  paleontology.  Many  had  asserted,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  fossil  remains  were  the  exuviae  of 
what  were  once  living  animals,  but  no  one  before 
Cuvier  had  a  true  conception  of  their  relation  to  the 
existing  fauna  of  the  globe.  At  the  close  of  the 
last  century  this  profound  naturalist  commenced  an 
exhaustive  study  of  the  rich  fossiliferous  rocks  of 
the  Paris  basin,  and  was  soon  able  to  announce  to 
an  astonished  world  that  the  fossils  there  discovered 
were  not  only  the  remains  of  animals  long  since  ex- 
tinct, but  that  they  belonged  to  species  and  genera 
entirely  different  from  any  now  existing.  To  the 
amazement  of  men  of  science  he  proved  the  exist- 
ence of  a  tropical  fauna  in  the  latitude  of  Paris,  and 
exhibited  animal  forms  totally  unlike  anything  now 
living.  His  discoveries  carried  men's  minds  back  to 
times  far  anterior  to  the  Deluge  of  Noah  ;  back  to 
epochs  whose  remoteness  from  our  own  is  to  be 
estimated  by  hundreds  of  thousands  and  millions  of 
years.  The  theory  that  the  fossiliferous  strata  of  the 
earth  were  deposited  by  Noah's  Flood  was  proven 
to  be  untenable  and  absurd,  and  it  was  therefore 
relegated  definitively  to  the  limbo  of  fanciful  spec- 
ulations and  exploded  hypotheses.  Thinking  men 
were  compelled  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
world  is  much  older  than  had  been  imagined ;  that 
far  from  having  been  created  only  a  few  thou- 
sand years  ago,  it  had  been  in  existence  for  many 
millions  of  years ;  and  that  many  strange  forms  of  life 
had  inhabited  the  earth  long  before  the  advent  of 
man  on  our  planet.  Further  investigations  carried 
on  by  Brongniart,  Cuvier's  collaborator,  by    D'Or- 


FOSS/LS  AND  GIANTS  39 

bigny,  Sedgwick,  Murchison,  Smith,  Lyell  and 
others,  showed  that  there  was  a  gradual  develop- 
ment from  the  forms  of  life  which  characterize  the 
earlier  geological  ages  to  those  which  appeared  at 
later  epochs.  From  the  simple,  primitive  forms  of 
the  lower  Silurian  Age  there  was  a  steady  progres- 
sion towards  the  higher  and  more  specialized  types 
of  the  Quaternary. 

Did  this  succession  betoken  genetic  connection? 
Were  the  higher  and  later  forms  genealogically  de- 
scended from  the  simpler  antecedent  types?  Was 
there  here,  in  a  word,  evidence  of  organic  Evolution? 

Controversy  in  the  French  Academy. 

Such  questions  had  been  suggested  before  but 
they  were  now  asked  in  all  seriousness,  and  by  those 
most  competent  to  interpret  the  facts  of  paleontol- 
ogy. A  storm  was  brewing  in  the  scientific  world, 
and  when,  in  1830,  it  burst  in  the  French  Acad- 
emy, in  the  celebrated  contest  between  Cuvier  and 
Etienne  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  it  created  an  unpre- 
cedented sensation  in  the  whole  of  Europe,  notwith- 
standing the  great  political  excitement  of  the  time. 

An  anecdote,  told  of  Goethe,  shows  in  what  light 
the  great  poet-philosopher  viewed  the  dispute  which 
was  to  have  such  an  important  bearing  on  the  ques- 
tion of  the  origin  of  species.  The  news  of  the  out- 
break of  the  French  Revolution  of  July  had  just 
reached  Weimar,  and  the  whole  town  was  in  a  state 
of  excitement.  "  In  the  course  of  the  afternoon," 
says  Soret,  "  I  went  around  to  Goethe's.  '  Now,' 
exclaimed  he  to  me,  as  I   entered,  'what  do  you 


40  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA. 

think  of  this  great  event  ?  The  volcano  has  come 
to  an  eruption ;  everything  is  in  flames,  and  we  have 
no  longer  a  transaction  with  closed  doors! '  '  Terri- 
ble affairs,'  said  I,  '  but  what  could  be  expected  un- 
der such  outrageous  circumstances,  and  with  such  a 
ministry,  otherwise  than  that  the  whole  would  end 
with  the  expulsion  of  the  royal  family  ?  '  '  My  good 
friend,'  gravely  returned  Goethe,  'we  seem  not  to  un- 
derstand each  other.  I  am  not  speaking  of  those  crea- 
tures there,  but  of  something  quite  different.  I  am 
speaking  of  the  contest,  so  important  for  science,  be- 
tween Cuvier  and  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  which  has 
just  come  to  an  open  rupture  in  the  French  Acad- 
emy! '  "  This  individual  contest  between  two  giants 
was  the  signal  for  a  general  outbreak.  The  first  gun 
was  fired  and  a  war  ensued,  which  has  continued  with 
almost  unabated  vigor  until  the  present  time.  The 
scientific  world  was  divided  into  two  camps,  those  who 
sympathized  with  the  views  of  Geoffroy  regarding 
Evolution,  and  those  who  sided  with  Cuvier,  the  ad- 
vocate of  the  traditional  doctrine  of  special  creations. 
Much,  however,  remained  to  be  accomplished  be- 
fore the  views  of  Saint-Hilaire  could  be  considered 
as  anything  more  than  a  provisional  hypothesis. 
The  evidence  of  all  the  sciences  had  to  be  weighed, 
a  thorough  survey  of  the  vast  field  of  animate  nature 
had  to  be  made,  before  the  new  school  could  reason- 
ably expect  its  views  to  meet  with  general  accept- 
ance. Special  and  systematic  investigations  were 
accordingly  inaugurated,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  in 
which  representatives  of  every  department  of  science 
took  an  active  and  interested  part. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION    AND    SCIENTIFIC    DIS- 
COVERY. 

Early  Views  Regarding  Abiogenesis. 

BEFORE  recounting  the  results  of  these  investi- 
gations, it  may  not,  perhaps,  be  out  of  place, 
briefly  to  summarize  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  biol- 
ogy which  has  always  had  a  peculiar  interest  for 
students  of  nature,  and  which,  even  to-day,  notwith- 
standing many  long  and  animated  controversies  on 
the  subject,  has  probably  a  greater  interest  for  a 
certain  school  of  evolutionists  than  almost  any  other 
one  topic.  I  refer  to  the  subject  of  spontaneous 
generation,  or  abiogenesis,'  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made  en  passant. 

The  discussion  of  this  question  has  played  such 
an  important  part  in  the  history  of  science,  that  any 
treatment  of  the  theory  of  Evolution  which  should 
contain  no  reference  to  the  subject  of  spontaneous 
generation,  would  ignore  one  of  the  most  essential 
factors  in  a  great  and  long-continued  controversy. 
In  good  sooth,  some  knowledge  of  the  more  salient 
facts  of  abiogenesis  are  absolutely  irtdispensable  to  a 
proper  appreciation  of  certain  of  the  most  interest- 
ing problems  connected  with  the  theory  of  Evolution 


*  Generatio  aequivoca,  heterogenesis,  and    autogenesis,  are 
sometimes  employed  as  synonyms  of  spontaneous  generation. 

(41) 


42  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  D OGMA . 

as  now  understood.  In  many  respects,  indeed,  Evo- 
lution and  abiogenesis  go  hand  in  hand  and  what 
throws  light  on  the  one  at  the  same  time  illuminates 
the  other,  diminishing,  part  passu,  the  difficulties  of 
both,  or  bringing,  it  may  be,  such  difficulties  into 
bolder  relief. 

The  doctrine  that  certain  animals  and  plants 
arise  from  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms  of  inor- 
ganic matter,  or  originate  from  decaying  animal  or 
vegetable  matter,  that  nature  is  capable  of  bringing 
forth   living  bodies, 

"  Qui  rupto  robore  nati, 
Compositive  luto,  nullos  habuere  parentes." 

is  one  of  those  errors  in  science  that  can  be  traced 
back  to  the  earliest  period  of  scientific  speculation. 
It  received  the  imprimatur  of  Aristotle,  who  was  a 
firm  believer  in  spontaneous  generation,  and,  like 
many  other  errors  indorsed  by  the  famous  Stagirite,  it 
was  almost  universally  accepted  as  incontestable  truth 
until  a  few  decades  ago.  How  much  this  belief,  by 
engendering  false  notions  regarding  the  unity  and 
relationship  of  the  animal  world,  may  have  retarded 
the  progress  of  science,  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  in- 
quire. Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  discussions  to 
which  the  subject  gave  rise  from  time  to  time  had 
no  slight  influence  in  predisposing  many  minds  in 
favor  of  the  theory  of  Evolution,  and  of  throwing  a 
certain  light  on  the  subject  of  organic  development 
that  could  come  from  no  other  source. 

According  to  Aristotle  many  of  the  lower  forms 
of  animal  life  originate   spontaneously,   sometimes 


SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION.  43 

from  decomposing  animal  or  vegetable  matter,  some- 
times from  the  slime  of  the  earth.  Many  insects,  he 
tells  us,  spring  from  putrid  matter ;  certain  fish  have 
their  origin  in  mud  and  sand,  while  eels,  we  are  as- 
sured, are  spontaneously  produced  in  marshy 
ponds.*  Aristotle's  views  were  shared  by  his  coun- 
trymen as  well  as  by  the  Romans — by  poets  and 
philosophers  as  well  as  by  naturalists.  Pliny  and 
Varro  speak  of  spontaneous  generation  as  do  also 
Virgil  and  Lucretius  and  Ovid.  All  readers  of  Ovid 
are  familiar  with  the  interesting  account  given  in 
the  '*  Metamorphoses"  of  the  origin  of  bees,  hornets 
and  scorpions  from  putrid  flesh,  of  frogs  from  slime, 
and  of  serpents  from  human  marrow.  * 

Entertaining  such  notions  regarding  the  origin 
of  living  things,  we  can  understand  why  Rome's 
poet-philosopher  declares  "  It  remains,  therefore,  to 
believe  that  the  earth  must  justly  have  obtained 
the  name  of  mother,  since  from  the  earth  all  living 


'  See  his  "  History  of  Animals,"  book  V,  chap,  i,  and  book 
VI,  chaps.  XIV  and  xv. 

'     ''  Si  qua  fides  rebus  tamen  est  addenda  probatis, 
Nonne  vides,  quaecumque  mora  fluidove  calore 
Corpora  tabuerint,  in  parva  animalia  verti? 
I  quoque,  delectos  mactatos  obrue  tauros; 
Cognita  res  usu,  de  putri  viscere  passim 
Florrilegie  nascuntur  apes     .     .     . 
Pressus  humo  bellator  equus  crabronis  origo  est. 
Concava  littoreo  si  demas  brachia  cancro  ; 
Cetera  supponas  terrae ;  de  parte  sepulta 
Scorpius  exibit 
********* 

Semina  limus  habetviridea  generantia  ranas. 

Sunt  qui,  cum  clauso  putrefacta  est  spina  sepulchre, 
Mutari  credant  humanas  angue  medullas." 

Ovid,  "  Metamorphoses,"  Lib.  XV.,  vv.  361,  et  seq. 


44  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

creatures  were  born.  And  even  now  many  animals 
spring  forth  from  the  earth,  which  are  generated  by 
means  of  moisture  and  the  quickening  heat  of  the 
sun." ' 

Fathers  and  Schoolmen  on  Abiogenesis. 

The  views  of  Aristotle  and  his  successors  were 
accepted  and  taught  by  the  Fathers  and  the  School- 
men of  the  Middle  Ages.  St.  Augustine,  in  discuss- 
ing the  question  whether  certain  small  animals  were 
created  on  the  fifth  or  sixth  day,  or  whether  they 
arose  from  putrid  matter,  says  :  "  Many  small  ani- 
mals originate  from  unhealthy  vapors,  from  evapora- 
tions from  the  earth,  or  from  corpses  ;  some  also 
from  decayed  woods,  herbs  and  fruits.  But  God  is 
the  creator  of  all  things.  It  may,  therefore,  be  said 
that  those  animals  which  sprang  from  the  bodies, 
and  especially  the  corpses,  of  other  living  beings, 
were  only  created  with  them  potentialiter  and  mater- 
ialiter.  But  of  those  which  spring  from  the  earth, 
or  water,  we  may  unhesitatingly  say  that  they  were 
created  on  the  fifth  and  sixth  days."  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  acquiesces  in  this  opinion  of  the  great 
bishop  of  Hippo,  although  he  declined  to  accept 
Avicenna's  theory  that  all  animals  could  originate 
spontaneously. 

I  direct  special  attention  to  the  teachings  of  the 
Fathers  and    Schoolmen    regarding  abiogenesis,  as 


^     "  Linquitur,  ut  merito  maternum  nomen  adepta 
Terra  sit,  e  terra  quoniam  sunt  cuncta  creata, 
Multaque  nunc  etiam  existant  animalia  terris 
Imbribus,  at  calido  solis  concreta  vapore." 

Lucretius,  "  De  Rerum  Natura,'"  Lib.  V.  793-796. 


SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION.  45 

they  have  a  profound  significance  in  the  discussion 
of  certain  questions  which  shall  be  referred  to  in  the 
sequel.  The  principles  which  they  admitted  have 
an  importance  that  is  far-reaching,  and  should  be 
more  generally  known  than  they  are.  For  the  appli- 
cation of  these  principles — broad  and  deep  they 
are — will  enable  us  to  refute  many  objections  that 
would  otherwise  be  unanswerable,  and  enable  us  to  es- 
cape from  many  difficulties  which  frequently  give  both 
scientists  and  theologians  no  inconsiderable  trouble. 

For  centuries  after  the  time  of  St.  Thomas,  the 
theory  of  spontaneous  generation  was  universally 
held  and  taught  in  all  the  schools  of  Europe. 

And  more  than  this.  Learned  men  of  science 
and  grave  theologians  did  not  hesitate  to  give  in- 
structions as  to  how  certain  animals  might  be 
brought  into  existence  by  the  mysterious  power  of 
abiogenesis.  As  late  as  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
famous  Jesuit  scholar,  Athanasius  Kircher,  confi- 
dently indicated  the  following  method  of  produc- 
ing serpents  by  spontaneous  generation  :  "  Take  as 
many  serpents  as  you  like,  dry  them,  cut  them  into 
small  pieces,  bury  these  in  damp  earth,  water  them 
freely  with  rain  water,  and  leave  the  rest  to  the 
spring  sun.  After  eight  days  the  whole  will  turn 
into  little  worms,  which,  fed  with  milk  and  earth, 
will  at  length  become  perfect  serpents,  and  by  pro- 
creation will  multiply  ad  infinitum y  Van  Helmont 
gave  a  recipe  for  making  fleas,  while  there  were 
others  who  gave  equally  explicit  directions  for  the 
production  of  mice  from  cheese,  or  fish  by  the  fer- 
mentation of  suitable  material. 


46  £  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA. 

Even  so  late  as  the  last  century,  there  were 
learned  men  who  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that 
mussels  and  shell-fish  are  generated  from  mud  and 
sand,  and  that  eels  are  produced  from  dew. 

Redi's  Experiments. 

The  first  one  effectively  to  controvert  the  doc- 
trine of  abiogenesis  was  Francesco  Redi,  of  the  cele- 
brated Academia  del  Cimento,  of  Florence.  In  his 
remarkable  work  entitled  "  Esperienze  intorno  alia 
Generazione  degl'  Insetti,"  published  in  1668,  he  dis- 
tinctly enunciates  the  doctrine  that  there  is  no  life 
without  antecedent  life — ontne  vivum  ex  vivo — that  all 
living  organisms  have  sprung  originally  from  preexist- 
ing germs,  and  that  the  apparent  production  of  or- 
ganized beings  from  putrefied  animal  matter,  or  vege- 
table infusions,  is  due  to  the  existence  or  introduc- 
tion of  germs  into  the  matter  from  which  such  beings 
seem  to  originate. 

The  experiments  by  which  Redi  proved  his  as- 
sertion were  as  simple  as  they  at  the  time  were  con- 
clusive. 

He  placed  some  meat  in  a  jar  and  then  tied 
fine  gauze  over  the  top  of  the  jar.  The  meat 
underwent  putrefaction  but  no  maggots  appeared. 
Redi  hence  inferred  that  maggots  are  not  generated 
by  decomposing  meat,  but  by  something  which  is 
excluded  from  the  jar  by  the  gauze.  He  soon  dis- 
covered that  this  something  which  had  eluded  all 
previous  observers,  was  the  eggs  of  a  blow-fly,  which, 
when  deposited  on  meat,  or  dead  animals,  invariably 
gave  rise  to  the  maggots  that   had   hitherto    been 


SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION.  47 

regarded  as  spontaneously  generated.  By  a  series  of 
similar  experiments  he  showed  that  in  all  cases  the 
apparent  production  of  living  from  dead  matter  was 
due  to  the  introduction,  from  without,  of  living 
germs  into  the  matter  from  which  life  seemed  to 
originate. 

So  deeply  rooted,  however,  was  the  doctrine  of 
spontaneous  generation  in  the  minds  of  men,  that 
Redi's  conclusions  were  far  from  meeting  with  ready 
acceptance.  All  kinds  of  objections  were  urged 
against  his  experiments  and  the  inferences  which  he 
drew  from  them.  Some  of  his  opponents  even  went 
so  far  as  to  assert  that  his  conclusions  were  con- 
trary to  the  teachings  of  Scripture,  which,  they  con- 
tended, manifestly  implied,  if  it  did  not  expressly 
affirm,  the  doctrine  of  abiogenesis.  In  proof  of 
their  view  they  referred  to  the  generation  of  bees 
from  the  Hon  which  had  been  slain  by  Samson, 
and  which  suggested  the  riddle  that  so  puzzled  the 
Philistines  : — "  Out  of  the  eater  came  forth  meat, 
and  out  of  the  strong  came  forth  sweetness."  ' 

From  our  present  way  of  viewing  the  question 
such  an  objection  seems  very  strange,  to  say  the 
least,  but  stranger  still  does  it  appear  when  we  re- 
flect that  it  was  urged  in  the  name  of  theology  and 
Scripture.  The  spell  of  antiquity  and  authority  was 
still  hanging  over  the  students  of  nature,  and  it  re- 


'Judges,  chap,  xiv,  5-14. — Redi  refers  to  the  objections 
of  his  adversaries  in  the  following  passage  from  his  "  Esper- 
ienze:  "  "  Molti  e  moltialtri  ancora  vi  potrei  annoverare,  se  non 
fossi  chiamato  a  rispondere  alle  rampogne  di  alcuni  che 
brusquamente  mi  rammentano  cio  che  si  legge  nel  capitolo 
quattordicesimo  del  sacrosanto  Libro  de'  Giudici."  p.  45. 


48  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

quired  an  intrepid  investigator  like  Redi,  strong  in 
his  sense  of  right  and  certain  in  his  interpretations 
of  the  teachings  of  experiment,  to  assert  his  intellec- 
tual freedom,  and  to  cope  with  those  who  imagined 
that  Aristotle  could  not  err,  and  that  certain  meta- 
physical dicta,  which  were  universally  quoted,  were, 
in  natural  science,  to  be  accounted  as  so  many 
canons  of  truth. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  opposition  which  he 
excited,  Redi  was  triumphant,  and  for  a  long  time 
the  theory  of  spontaneous  generation  was  very  gen- 
erally looked  upon  as  something  that  had  fallen  into 
disrepute. 

Later  Researches. 

But  the  victory  was  but  temporary.  The  inven- 
tion of  the  microscope,  and  the  discovery  of  the 
world  of  infusorial  animalculae,  which  before  had 
been  invisible,  resurrected  the  old  theory  of  abio- 
genesis,  and  many  eminent  naturalists  now  defended 
it  as  strenuously  as  had  any  one  of  its  supporters 
before  the  experiments  of  Redi  had  called  it  in 
question, 

Arrong  the  most  eminent  champions  of  the 
theory  of  the  spontaneous  generation  of  infusory 
animalcules,  were  the  English  naturalist,  Needham, 
and  the  distinguished  French  savant,  Buffon.  As 
the  result  of  numerous  experiments  both  these 
observers  came  to  the  conclusion  that,  whatever 
views  might  be  entertained  regarding  the  origin  of 
the  higher  forms  of  animal  life,  there  could  be  no 
doubt  about  the  spontaneous  production  of  certain 


SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION.  49 

of  the  lower  animalculse,  from  suitably  prepared  in- 
fusions of  animal  or  vegetable  matter. 

This  apparent  victory  was,  however,  but  ephem- 
eral. The  experiments  in  question  were  taken  up 
by  a  distinguished  Italian  ecclesiastic,  the  Abbate 
Spallanzani,  who  subjected  them  to  a  rigid  and  ex- 
haustive examination.  The  result  of  his  labors 
issued  in  proving  incontestably  that  the  experiments 
of  Needham  were  defective,  and  that  his  conclusions, 
therefore,  were  unwarranted.  Spallanzani  demon- 
strated that  when  the  necessary  precautions  are 
taken  against  the  admission  of  germs  into  the  infu- 
sions employed,  no  animalcules  whatever  are  devel- 
oped, and  that  the  theories  and  conclusions  of 
Buffon  and  Needham  were  not  sustained  by  the 
facts  in  the  case. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  investigations  of  Redi 
and  his  successors,  Leeuwenhoek,  Swammerdam, 
Reaumur  and  Vallisneri,  and  despite  the  researches 
of  Spallanzani,  Schultze  and  Schwann,  Van  Siebold, 
Leuckart,  and  Van  Beneden,  there  were  not  wanting 
men  who  still  pinned  their  faith  to  the  theory  of 
abiogenesis.  Foremost  among  these  were  the  cele- 
brated chemists  Berzelius  and  Liebig.  "  Was  it 
certain,"  they  asked,  "that  in  the  experiments 
which  had  hitherto  been  conducted,  that  the  proper- 
ties of  the  air,  or  oxygen  of  the  air,  or  of  the  men- 
strua  themselves,  had  not  been  essentially  changed, 
and  thus  had  rendered  them  incompetent  to  give 
rise  to  the  phenomena  which  they  would  exhibit 
in  their  natural  and  chemically  unchanged  condi- 
tion ?" 

E.-4 


50  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

These  questions  were  taken  up  and  answered  in 
the  epoch-making  researches  of  that  prince  of  inves- 
tigators, the  universally  revered  and  world-renowned 
Pasteur.  He  demonstrated  that  in  every  instance 
life  originates  from  antecedent  life  —  omne  vivum  ex 
vivo —  that  the  various  forms  of  fermentation,  putre- 
faction and  disease  are  not  only  caused  by  the  pres- 
ence and  action  of  certain  microbes,  but  that  these 
microbes,  as  well  as  organisms  of  a  superior  organ- 
ization, are  invariably  produced  by  beings  like  them- 
selves ;  that,  in  all  cases,  like  proceeds  from  like, 
and  that,  consequently,  spontaneous  generation 
is,  to  use  his  own  characterization  of  it,  a  "  chi- 
mera." 

Is  the  discussion  finally  closed?  Has  the  theory 
of  abiogenesis  received  its  coup  dc  grdce?  At  the 
present  moment  Pasteur  and  his  school  are  un- 
doubtedly lords  of  the  ascendant.  Will  they  always 
remain  so?  Time  alone  can  answer  this  question. 
In  the  opinion  of  such  men  as  Pouchet  and  Bastian, 
two  of  Pasteur's  ablest  antagonists,  the  question,  so 
far  as  experiment  goes,  is  at  best  settled  only  pro- 
visionally, and  the  same  old  controversy  may  break 
out  any  day,  as  it  has  so  often  broken  out  since  the 
time  of  Redi,  when  it  was  declared  to  be  definitively 
closed. 

But,  whatever  be  the  last  word  of  science  respect- 
ing abiogenesis,  the  discussion  of  the  subject  has  led 
to  the  discovery  of  many  new  facts  of  inestimable 
importance,  and  has  vastly  extended  our  view  of 
the  domain  of  animated  nature.  It  has  disclosed 
to  our  vision  a  world    before    unknown,  the  world 


SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION.  51 

of   microbian   life  —  a  world  which  has  been  aptly 
described  as  "  the  world  of  the  infinitely  little." 

General  Advance  in  Science. 

The  general  progress  of  science,  however,  points 
towards  some  process  of  Evolution  far  more  unmis- 
takably than  does  anything  disclosed  during  the 
long  controversy  regarding  spontaneous  generation. 

Geology  and  physical  geography  have  taught  us 
that  our  earth  is  subject  to  mutations  and  fluctua- 
tions innumerable;  paleontology  has  revealed  a  world 
whose  existence  was  not  only  not  suspected,  a  few 
generations  ago,  but  a  world  whose  existence  would 
have  been  unhesitatingly  denied  as  contrary  to  both 
science  and  Scripture,  if  anyone  had  been  bold 
enough  to  proclaim  its  reality.  Far  from  being  only 
six  thousand  years  old,  as  was  so  long  imagined,  our 
globe,  as  the  abode  of  life,  must  now,  as  is  shown  by 
the  study  of  the  multifold  extinct  forms  entombed 
in  its  crust,  reckon  its  age  by  millions,  if  not  by  tens 
of  millions  of  years. 

By  the  naturalists  of  the  last  century  the  num- 
ber of  known  species  of  plants  and  animals  was  esti- 
mated at  a  few  thousands,  or  a  few  tens  of  thousands 
at  most.  But  now,  owing  to  the  impetus  which  has 
been  given  to  the  study  of  zoology  and  botany, 
especially  during  the  past  few  decades,  the  latest 
census  of  organic  beings  places  the  number  of  spe- 
cies at  a  million  or  more.  Yet  formidable  as  this 
number  is,  the  list  is  far  from  being  complete.  Fresh 
additions  are  being  made  to  it  every  day.  The  re- 
searches  of    naturalists   in    the    many   unexplored 


52  EVOLUTION  AXD  DOGMA. 

fields  of  the  earth ;  the  investigations  of  micro- 
scopists  in  the  boundless  domain  of  microbian  life; 
the  dredging  of  the  ocean  depths  in  various  parts  of 
the  globe  by  a  constantly  increasing  corps  of  trained 
votaries  of  science,  show  that  we  are  yet  very  far 
from  having  anything  approaching  a  complete  cen- 
sus of  the  rich  and  varied  fauna  and  flora  which 
adorn  our  planet. 

But  great  as  is  the  number  of  species  actually 
existing,  it  is  but  a  small  fraction  of  those  which  are 
known  to  have  lived  and  died  since  the  dawn  of  life 
on  the  globe.  A  hundred  million  species  or  more, 
it  has  been  computed,  have  appeared  and  died  out 
since  the  time  the  Eozobn  Canadense  began  its  hum- 
ble existence.  And  as  our  knowledge  of  the  past 
history  of  the  earth  becomes  more  thorough,  there 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  we  shall  find  this  esti- 
mate, extravagant  as  it  may  appear  to  some,  below, 
rather  than  above,  the  reality. 

Synchronously  with  this  advance  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  nature,  the  impression — which  had  all  along 
been  entertained  by  a  greater  or  lesser  number  of 
philosophers  and  students  of  nature — has  become 
stronger  that  all  the  changes  and  developments 
which  the  earth  has  witnessed  ;  all  the  prodigality 
of  form  and  size  and  color,  which  a  bounteous 
nature  has  lavished  upon  a  fauna  and  flora  whose 
species  are  past  numbering,  is  the  result  not  of  so 
many  separate  creative  acts,  but  rather  of  a  single 
creation  and  of  a  subsequent  uniform  process  of 
Evolution,  according  to  certain  definite  and  immu- 
table laws. 


SPONTANEOUS    GENERATION.  53 

Chemistiy  and  Astronomy. 

The  indications  of  paleontology  and  biology 
respecting  Evolution  have  been  corroborated  by 
the  revelations  of  chemistry,  astronomy  and  stellar 
physics.  Everything  seems  to  point  conclusively  to 
a  development  from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  and 
to  disclose  "a  change  from  the  homogenous  to  the 
heterogenous  through  continuous  differentiations  and 
integrations." 

It  is  simple  elements  that  go  toward  building  up 
organic  and  inorganic  compounds.  And  while  it  is 
now  generally  believed  that  there  are  some  three 
score  and  odd  substances  which  are  to  be  classed  as 
elementary,  there  are,  nevertheless,  not  wanting  rea- 
sons for  thinking  that  all  the  so-called  elements  are 
but  so  many  modifications,  so  many  allotropic  forms, 
of  one  and  the  same  primal  kind  of  matter.  The 
telescope  discloses  to  us  in  the  nebulae  which  fleck 
the  heavens,  the  primitive  matter,  the  Urstoff,  from 
which  the  sidereal  universe  was  formed :  "  the  gas- 
eous raw  material  of  future  stars  and  solar  systems." 
The  spectroscope,  in  spite  of  Comte's  dogmatic  dec- 
laration, that  we  should  never  know  anything  about 
the  chemical  constitution  of  the  stars,  has  not  only 
given  us  positive  knowledge  regarding  the  composi- 
tion of  the  heavenly  bodies,  but,  thanks  to  the  la- 
bors of  Secchi,  Huggins,  Lockyer  and  others,  has 
also  furnished  information  concerning  their  relative 
ages,  their  directions  of  motion,  and  their  velocities 
in  space. 

As  the  astronomer,  the  chemist,  and  the  physicist 
view  the  material  universe,  it  is  constituted  throughout 


54  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

of  the  same  material,  a  kind  of  cosmic  dust, 
similar  to,  if  not  identical  with,  that  which  com- 
poses the  existing  nebulae.  No  form  of  matter  has 
yet  been  discovered  in  any  of  the  heavenly  bod- 
ies which  is  not  found  on  the  earth,  and  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  in  chemical  constitution 
the  visible  universe  is  everywhere  identical.  And 
should  it  eventually  be  demonstrated  that  all  the 
known  chemical  elements  are  only  modifications  of 
one  primal  form  of  matter,  and  this  is  far  from  im- 
possible, or  even  improbable,  then  will  be  vindi- 
cated the  old  Greek  theory  of  a  primordial  matter, 
TzpiuTri  ukr/,  a  theory  ardently  championed  by  St. 
Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  his  school,  and  defended  in 
some  form  or  other  by  many  of  the  Schoolmen.  And 
then,  too,  will  the  theory  of  Evolution  be  furnished 
with  a  stronger  argument  than  any  other  single  one 
that  has  yet  been  advanced  in  its  support. 

Testimony  of  Biology. 

But  great  as  was  the  influence  of  discoveries  in 
geology,  paleontology,  microscopy,  chemistry,  astron- 
omy and  stellar  physics,  in  preparing  the  minds  of 
scientific  men  for  the  acceptance  of  the  theory  of  or- 
ganic Evolution,  the  arguments  which  had  the  great- 
est weight,  which  finally  enlisted  in  favor  of  Evolu- 
tion those  who,  like  Lyell,  still  hesitated  about 
giving  in  their  adhesion  to  the  doctrine  of  derivation, 
were  those  which  were  based  on  data  furnished  by 
the  sciences  of  botany,  zoology,  physiology,  and  by 
those  newer  sciences,  embryology  and  comparative 
osteology. 


CHAPTER  V. 

FROM  LORD   BACON  TO  CHARLES  DARWIN. 
First  Materials  for  the  Controversy. 

I  HAVE  spoken  of  the  celebrated  dispute  between 
Cuvier  and  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  in  which 
Goethe  was  so  much  interested.  Materials  for  this 
controversy  had  been  rapidly  accumulating  during 
the  half  century  preceding  the  date  when  it  finally 
broke  out  in  the  French  Academy.  Indeed,  it  would 
be  truer  to  say  that  materials  had  been  accumulating 
during  two  centuries  prior  to  the  historic  debate 
between  Cuvier  and  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire.  From 
the  time  of  Bacon,  Descartes  and  Leibnitz,  more, 
far  more,  had  been  done  towards  the  development 
of  the  Evolution  idea  than  had  been  effected  during 
all  the  centuries  which  had  elapsed  between  the 
earliest  speculations  of  the  Ionian  school  and  the 
publication  of  the  "  Novum  Organum." 

We  have  already  learned  what  geology  and  pale- 
ontology contributed  towards  the  establishment  of 
the  theory  of  Evolution.  We  have  seen  how  the  study 
of  fossils  and  the  careful  and  long-continued  examina- 
tion of  the  much-vexed  question  of  spontaneous  gen- 
eration shed  a  flood  of  light  on  numerous  problems 
which  were  before  obscure  and  mysterious  in  the  ex- 
treme. But  while  Da  Vinci,  Fracostoro,  Palissy,  Steno, 
Generelli,  Redi,  Malpighi,  Leeuwenhoek,  Schwam- 
merdam  and  their  compeers,  were  carrying  on  their 

(55) 


56  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

investigations  regarding  fossils  and  infusoria,  students 
in  other  departments  of  science  were  not  idle.  Ges- 
ner,  Vesalius,  Fallopius,  Fabricius  and  Harvey  were 
then  conducting  their  famous  researches  in  zoology, 
anatomy,  and  embryology,  while  Cesalpinus,  Ray, 
Tournefort  and  Linnaeus  were  laying  the  secure 
foundations  of  systematic  botany  and  vegetable  anat- 
omy. It  was  to  this  period,  indeed,  that,  as  has 
been  truthfully  observed :  "  We  owe  the  foundation  of 
microscopic  anatomy,  enriched  and  joined  to  physic 
ology  ;  comparative  anatomy  studied  with  care  ;  class- 
ification placed  on  a  rational  and  systematic  basis." 

Bacon  and  Kant. 

Lord  Bacon  was  not  only  a  firm  believer  in 
organic  Evolution  but  was  one  of  the  first  to  sug- 
gest that  the  transmutation  of  species  might  be  the 
result  of  an  accumulation  of  variations.  Descartes, 
too,  inclined  to  Evolution  rather  than  to  special  crea- 
tion, and  was  the  first  philosopher,  after  St.  Augus- 
tine, who  specially  insisted  that  the  sum  of  all 
things  is  governed  by  natural  laws,  and  that  the 
physical  universe  is  not  the  scene  of  constant  mira- 
cles and  Divine  interventions.  Leibnitz,  like  Bacon 
and  Descartes,  accepted  the  doctrine  of  the  muta- 
bility of  species,  and  showed  in  many  passages  in 
his  works,  that  no  system  of  cosmic  philosophy 
could  be  considered  complete  which  was  not  based 
on  the  demonstrated  truths  of  organic  Evolution. 
"All  advances  by  degrees  in  nature,"  he  tells  us, 
"  and  nothing  by  leaps,  and  this  law,  as  applied  to 
each,  is  part  of  my  doctrine  of  continuity." 


LORD  BACON  TO  CHARLES  DARWIN.       57 

Immanuel  Kant,  in  common  with  his  illustrious 
contemporary,  Buffon,  accepted  the  ideas  that  spe- 
cific mutability  results  from  selection,  environment, 
adaptation  and  inheritance.  Like  the  great  French 
naturalist,  too,  he  derived  all  the  higher  forms  of 
life  from  lower  and  simpler  forms.  He  recognized 
also  the  law  of  degeneration  from  original  types, 
and  the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  which 
were  subsequently  to  play  such  important  roles  in 
all  theories  of  organic  Evolution.  Indeed,  I  do  not 
think  Kant  has  received  due  recognition  for  his  con- 
tributions towards  the  philosophy  of  the  cosmos. 
Like  Aristotle,  he  had  a  faculty  for  correct  gener- 
alization which  sometimes  gave  his  views  almost 
the  semblance  of  prophecy.  Taking  up  the  nebular 
hypothesis,  as  it  was  left  by  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
he  adapted  it  to  the  science  of  his  time,  and  in  many 
respects  forestalled  the  conclusions  of  Laplace  and 
Herschel.  Similarly  he  took  up  the  principles  of 
Evolution  as  they  had  been  laid  down  by  St.  Augus- 
tine and  the  Angel  of  the  Schools,  and,  by  giving 
them  a  new  dress,  he  anticipated  much  of  the  evolu- 
tionary teaching  of  subsequent  investigators.  Con- 
sidering the  time  in  which  he  wrote,  nothing  is  more 
remarkable  than  the  following  comprehensive  r^sum^ 
of  his  views  on  Evolution  : — 

"  It  is  desirable  to  examine  the  great  domain 
of  organized  beings  by  means  of  a  methodical,  com- 
parative anatomy,  in  order  to  discover  whether  we 
may  not  find  in  them  something  resembling  a  sys- 
tem, and  that,  too,  in  connection  with  their  mode  of 
generation,  so  that  we  may  not  be  compelled  to  stop 


58  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

short  with  a  mere  consideration  of  forms  that  are, 
which  gives  us  no  insight  into  their  generation,  and 
need  not  despair  of  gaining  a  full  insight  into 
this  department  of  nature.  The  agreement  of  so 
many  kinds  of  animals  in  a  certain  common  plan  of 
structure,  which  seems  to  be  visible  not  only  in 
their  skeletons,  but  also  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
other  parts — so  that  a  wonderfully  simple  typical 
form,  by  the  shortening  and  lengthening  of  some 
parts,  and  by  the  suppression  and  development  of 
others,  might  be  able  to  produce  an  immense  va- 
riety of  species — gives  us  a  ray  of  hope,  though 
feeble,  that  here,  perhaps,  some  results  may  be  ob- 
tained by  the  application  of  the  principle  of  the 
mechanism  of  nature,  without  which,  in  fact,  no 
science  can  exist.  This  analogy  of  forms — in  so  far 
as  they  seem  to  have  been  produced  in  accordance 
with  a  common  prototype,  notwithstanding  their 
great  variety — strengthens  the  supposition  that  they 
have  an  actual  blood  relationship,  due  to  derivation 
from  a  common  parent ;  a  supposition  which  is  ar- 
rived at  by  observation  of  the  graduated  approxima- 
tion of  one  class  of  animals  to  another,  beginning 
with  the  one  in  which  the  principle  of  purposiveness 
seems  to  be  most  conspicuous,  namely  man,  and  ex-, 
tending  down  to  polyps,  and  from  these  even  down 
to  mosses  and  lichens,  and  arriving  finally  at  raw 
matter,  the  lowest  stage  of  nature  observable  by  us. 
From  this  raw  matter  and  its  forces,  the  whole  ap- 
paratus of  nature  seems  to  have  been  derived  ac- 
cording to  mechanical  laws,  such  as  those  which 
resulted  in  the  production  of  crystals,  yet,  this  ap- 


LORD  BACON  TO  CHARLES  DARWIN.       59 

paratus,  as  seen  in  organic  beings,  is  so  incomprehen- 
sible to  us,  that  we  conceive  for  it  a  different  prin- 
ciple. But  it  would  seem  that  the  archaeologist  of 
nature,  that  is,  the  paleontologist,  is  at  liberty  to 
regard  the  great  family  of  creatures — for  a  family  we 
must  conceive  it,  if  the  above-mentioned  continuous 
and  connected  relationship  has  a  real  foundation — 
as  having  sprung  from  the  immediate  results  of  her 
earliest  revolutions,  judging  from  all  the  laws  of 
their  mechanisms  known  to,  or  conjectured  by  him." ' 
Passing  over  such  speculative  evolutionists  as 
De  Maillet,  Maupertuis,  Bonnet,  Robinet  and  Oken, 
who  did  little  more  than  revamp  the  crude  notions 
of  the  old  Ionian  speculators,  we  may  scan  in  hasty 
review  the  principal  contributions  made  to  the  evo- 
lutionary movement  by  the  great  naturalists  who 
flourished  between  the  time  of  Linnaeus  and  Cuvier. 

Linnaeus  and  Buffon. 

Linnaeus,  who  adopted  the  well-known  aphorism 
of  Leibnitz,  natura  non  facit  saltum,  was  as  much  of 
a  special  creationist  and,  consequently,  as  much  op- 
posed to  Evolution  as  was  the  illustrious  Cuvier. 
But  although  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  career  he  con- 
tended that  there  were  no  such  things  as  new 
species — nulla  species  novce — still,  at  a  later  period, 
he  was  willing  to  admit  that  "  all  species  of  one 
genus  constituted  at  first,  that  is,  at  creation,  one 
species" — ab  initio  unam  constituerint  speciem — but 
maintained  that  "  they  were  subsequently  multiplied 


^  Quoted  in  Osborne's  useful  little  work  "  From  the  Greeks  to 
Darwin,"  pp.  loi,  102, 


60  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  D  O  GMA . 

by  hybrid  generation,  that  is,  by  intercrossing  with 
other  species.'" 

The  first  one  to  formulate  a  working  hypothesis 
respecting  the  mutation  of  species  was  the  eminent 
French  naturalist,  Buffon.  According  to  Lanessan, 
he  "anticipated  not  only  Lamarck  in  his  conception 
of  the  action  of  environment,  but  Darwin  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest."  The 
questions  of  heredity,  geographical  distribution,  the 
extinction  of  old  and  the  apparition  of  new  species 
he  discussed  with  rare  perspicacity  and  suggestive- 
ness.  He  was  undoubtedly  a  believer  in  the  unity 
of  type,  and  the  community  of  origin  of  all  animal 
forms,  although  the  diverse  views  he  entertained  on 
these  subjects  at  different  periods  of  his  life  have 
led  some  to  minimize  the  importance  of  his  contribu- 
tions to  the  theory  of  Evolution." 


^  •'  Suspicio  est,"  he  saj'S,  "  quam  diu  fovi  neque  jam  pro 
veritate  indubia  venditare  audeo,  sed  per  modum  hjpotheseos 
propono  ;  quod  scilicet  omnes  species  ejusdem  generis  ab  initio 
unam  constituerint  speciem,  sed  postea  per  generationes  hybridas 
propagatse  sint.  .  .  .  Num  vero  h^e  species  per  manum  Om- 
nipotentis  Creatoris  immediate  sint  exortse  in  primordio,  an  vero 
pernaturam,  Creatoris  executricem,  propagatse  in  tempore,  non 
adeo  facile  demonstrabitur."  "  Amcenitates  Academicae."  Vol. 
VI.,  p.  296. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  this  view  found  favor  with 
the  celebrated  Scriptural  commentator,  Dom  Calmet.  Only  on 
the  supposition  that  all  the  species  of  each  genus  originally 
formed  but  one  species,  was  he  able  to  explain  how  all  the  ani- 
mals could  find  a  place  in  the  ark  of  Noah. 

"  Speaking  of  the  factors  of  evolutionary-  changes  he  writes  : 
"  What  cannot  nature  effect  with  such  means  at  her  disposal  ? 
She  can  do  all  except  either  create  matter  or  destroj-  it.  These 
two  extremes  of  power,  the  Deity  has  reserved  for  Himself  alone; 
creation  and  destruction  are  the  attributes  of  His  Omnipotence. 
To  alter  and  undo,  to  develop  and  renew — these  are  powers 
which  He  has  handed  over  to  the  charge  of  nature." 


LORD  BACON  TO  CHARLES  DARWIN.       61 

Buffon,  also,  was  the  first  to  formulate  the  law  of 
uniformitarianism  which  was  subsequently  devel- 
oped with  such  care  by  Lyell  and  his  school.  In 
his  "  Theorie  da  la  Terre"  he  tells  us  that  "  in  order  to 
understand  what  had  taken  place  in  the  past,  or 
what  will  happen  in  the  future,  we  have  but  to  ob- 
serve what  is  going  on  at  present.' 

Erasmus  Darwin  and  Lamarck. 

Erasmus  Darwin,  a  contemporary  of  BufTon's  and 
the  grandfather  of  the  famous  naturalist,  did  much 
to  popularize  the  idea  of  Evolution.  In  his  "  Zoono- 
mia,"  "  Botanic  Garden,"  and  above  all  in  his  post- 
humous **  Temple  of  Nature,"  he  embodies  not 
only  the  leading  evolutionary  views  of  the  old  Greek 
philosophers,  as  well  as  those  of  Leibnitz  and  Buf- 
fon, but  he  likewise  introduces  and  developes  new 
ideas  of  his  own.  He  is  truly  a  poet  of  Evolution 
and  in  his  "  Temple  of  Nature  "we  find  selections  of 
verse  that  for  beauty  and  force  of  expression  compare 
favorably  with  the  finest  lines  of  the  "  De  Rerum 
Natura"  of  the  old  Roman  evolutionist,  Lucretius. 

As  the  founder  of  the  complete  modern  theory 
of  descent,  "  Lamarck,"  justly  observes  Osgood,  "  is 
the  most  prominent  figure  between  Aristotle  and 
Darwin."  He  was  an  accomplished  biologist,  and  a 
prolific  writer  on  botanical  and  zoological  subjects. 
He  laid  special  stress  on  the  effects  of  environment, 
and  of  use  and  disuse  in  the  modification  of  species. 
He  assumed  that  acquired  characters  are  inherited, 

*  "  Pour  juger  de  ce  qui  est  arrive  et  m^me  dp  ce  qui  arrivera, 
nous  n'avons  qu'a  examiner  ce  qui  arrive." 


62  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

but  never  attempted  to  demonstrate  a  postulate 
which  since  his  time  has  provoked  such  widespread 
discussion.* 

Among  the  contemporaries  of  Lamarck,  who  did 
much  to  develop  and  corroborate  the  theory  of 
Evolution,  must  be  mentioned  Goethe,  who  has  just- 
ly been  called  the  greatest  poet  of  Evolution,  and 
Treviranus.  As  a  morphologist  and  osteologist, 
Goethe  exhibited  talent  of  the  highest  order,  and, 
had  he  devoted  his  life  to  science  instead  of  litera- 
ture, he  would  have  ranked  with  the  most  eminent 
naturalists  of  modern  times.  In  referring  to  his 
essays  on  comparative  anatomy,  Cuvier  declares  that 
"  One  finds  in  them,  with  astonishment,  nearly  all 
the  propositions  which  have  been  separately  ad- 
vanced in  recent  times."  As  to  Treviranus,  Huxley 
places  him  alongside  Lamarck  as  one  of  the  chief 
founders  of  the  theory  of  Evolution,  although  there 
are  many  who  dissent  from  this  opinion  of  the  great 
English  biologist.     The  truth  is  he  was  rather  an 


^  The  nature  and  chief  factors  of  Evohition  according  to 
Lamarck,  are  expressed  in  the  following  four  laws  : — 

Premiere  Lot. — La  vie,  par  ses  propres  forces,  tend  con- 
tinuellement  4  accroitre  le  volume  de  tout  corps  qui  la  possede, 
et  a  etendre  les  dimensions  de  ses  parties,  jusqu'  a  un  terme  qu' 
elle  amene  elle-mSme. 

Deuxieme  Loi. — La  production  d'un  nouvel  organe  dans  un 
corps  animal  resulte  d'  un  nouveau  besoin  survenu  qui  continue 
de  se  faire  sentir,  et  d'  un  nouveau  mouvement  que  ce  besoin 
fait  naitre  et  entretient. 

Troisieme  Loi. — Ledeveloppement  des  organes  et  leur  force 
d'action  sont  constamment  en  raison  de  I'emploi  de  ces  organes. 

^uatrieme  Loi. — Tout  ce  qui  a  ete  acquis,  trace  ou  change 
dans  rorganisation  des  individus  pendant  le  cours  de  leur  vie, 
est  conserve  par  la  generation  et  transmis  aux  noaveaux  individus 
qui  proviennent  .de  ceux  qui  ont  eprouve  ces  changements.  Cf. 
"  Histoire  Naturelle,"  and  "  Philosophic  Zoologique." 


LORD  HA  CON  TO  CHARLES  DARWIN.       63 

exponent  of  the  views  of  others  than  an  originator 
of  any  theory  of  his  own. 

Species  and  Varieties. 

The  diflficulty  of  distinguishing  species  from 
varieties — a  difficulty  with  which  all  botanists  and 
zoologists  are  familiar,  and  one  which  augments  with 
the  progress  of  knowledge  of  the  fauna  and  flora  of 
the  world — and  the  almost  perfect  gradations  charac- 
terizing the  forms  of  certain  groups  of  animals  and 
plants,  contributed  more  than  anything  else  towards 
impelling  naturalists  from  the  time  of  Lamarck  to 
accept  the  doctrine  that  species  are  derived  from 
one  another  by  a  process  of  development. 

Observations  similar  to  those  made  by  Lamarck 
and  other  naturalists,  led  the  Rev.  W.  Herbert,  of 
England,  to  declare,  in  1837,  that  "  Horticultural  ex- 
periments have  established,  beyond  the  possibility 
of  refutation,  that  botanical  species  are  only  a  higher 
and  more  permanent  class  of  varieties."  He  enter- 
tained the  same  view  regarding  animals,  and  believed 
"  that  single  species  of  each  genus  were  created  in 
an  originally  highly  plastic  condition,  and  that  these 
by  intercrossing  and  by  variation  have  produced  all 
our  existing  species." 

In  1844  appeared  the  famous  "  Vestiges  of  Crea- 
tion," an  anonymous  work  by  Robert  Chambers. 
This  work  created  a  profound  sensation  at  the  time, 
and  although  lacking  in  scientific  accuracy  in  many 
points,  and  advocating  theories  that  have  long  since 
been  demolished,  it  passed  through  many  editions 
and  commanded  a  wide  circle  of  readers.     In  Great 


64  E  V  OL  U  TION  A  ND  D  O  GMA . 

Britain  the  opposition  to  the  views  expressed  in  the 
work  was  violent  in  the  extreme,  although  it  seems 
that  most  of  the  adverse  criticism  was  ill-founded. 
The  main  proposition  of  the  author,  determined  on 
as  he  himself  declares  "  after  much  consideration," 
is,  "  that  the  several  series  of  animated  beings,  from 
the  simplest  and  oldest  up  to  the  highest  and  most 
recent,  are,  under  the  providence  of  God,  the  results, 
first,  of  an  impulse  which  has  been  imparted  to  the 
forms  of  life,  advancing  them  in  definite  times,  by 
generation,  through  grades  of  organization  termi- 
nating in  the  highest  dicotyledons  and  vertebrata, 
these  grades  being  few  in  number,  and  generally 
marked  by  intervals  of  organic  character  which  we 
find  to  be  a  practical  difficulty  in  ascertaining  affini- 
ties ;  second,  of  another  impulse  connected  with  the 
vital  forces,  tending  in  the  course  of  generations  to 
modify  organic  structures  in  accordance  with  exter- 
nal circumstances,  as  food,  the  nature  of  the  habitat 
and  the  meteoric  agencies,  these  being  the  adapta- 
tions of  the  natural  theologian." 

Prior  to  this  time  the  distinguished  Belgian  geol- 
ogist, D*  Omalius  d'  Halloy,  had  expressed  the  opin- 
ion that  new  species  are  but  modified  forms  of  other 
species  from  which  they  are  descended.  And  a 
short  time  subsequently  the  eminent  French  bota- 
nist, M.  Charles  Naudin,  promulgated  similar  views, 
and  taught  that  species  as  well  as  varieties  are  but 
the  result  of  natural  and  artificial  selection.  He  did 
not,  it  is  true,  employ  these  words — words  which 
were  given  such  vogue  a  short  time  afterwards  by 
Darwin — but  his  theory  implied  all  they  express. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CONTROVERSY  AND   PROGRESS. 
Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species." 

THE  culmination  of  all  the  tentative  efforts 
which  had  hitherto  been  made,  towards  giving 
a  rational  explanation  of  the  mode  of  production 
of  the  divers  species  of  our  existing  fauna  and  flora, 
was  in  the  publication  of  Darwin's  now  famous  work, 
"  The  Origin  of  Species,"  which  was  given  to  the 
world  in  1859.  Simultaneously  and  "independently 
another  naturalist,  Mr.  Alfred  Wallace,  who  was  then 
far  away  in  the  Malay  Archipelago,  had  come  to  the 
same  conclusions  as  Darwin.  For  this  reason  he  is 
justly  called  the  co-discoverer  of  the  theory  which 
has  made  Darwin  so  famous. 

The  publication  of  "  The  Origin  of  Species  "  was 
the  signal  for  a  revolution  in  science  such  as  the 
world  had  never  before  witnessed.  The  work  was 
violently  denounced  or  ridiculed  by  the  majority  of 
its  readers,  although  it  counted  from  the  beginning 
such  staunch  defenders  as  Huxley,  Sp-^ncer,  Lyell, 
Hooker,  Wallace,  and  Asa  Gray.  Professor  Louis 
Agassiz,  probably  the  ablest  naturalist  then  living, 
in  his  criticism  of  the  book  declared :  "  The  argu- 
ments presented  by  Darwin,  in  favor  of  a  universal 
derivation  from  one  primary  form  of  all  the  pecul- 
iarities   existing   now   among    living    beings,  have 

E.-5  (65) 


66  EVOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

not  made  the  slightest  impression  on  my  mind. 
Until  the  facts  of  nature  are  shown  to  have 
been  mistaken  by  those  who  have  collected  them, 
and  that  they  have  a  different  meaning  from  that 
now  generally  assigned  to  them,  I  shall  therefore 
consider  the  transmutation  theory  as  a  scientific  mis- 
take, untrue  in  its  facts,  unscientific  in  its  method, 
and  mischievous  in  its  tendency.'" 

But  in  spite  of  the  storm  of  criticism  which  the 
work  provoked,  it  was  not  long  until  the  great  ma- 
jority of  naturalists  had  executed  a  complete  volte- 
face  in  their  attitude  towards  Darwinism.  If  they 
were  not  willing  to  go  to  the  same  lengths  as  the 
author  of  "  The  Origin  of  Species,"  or  hesitated  about 
conceding  the  importance  which  he  attached  to  nat- 
ural selection  as  an  explanation  of  organic  Evolution, 
they  were,  at  least,  willing  to  admit  that  he  had 
supplied  them  with  the  working  hypothesis  which 
they  were  seeking. 

Upon  these,  says  Huxley,  it  had  the  effect  "  of 
the  flash  of  light,  which  to  a  man  who  has  lost  him- 
self in  a  dark  night,  suddenly  reveals  a  road,  which, 
whether  it  take  him  straight  home  or  not,  certainly 
goes  his  way."  What  naturalists  were  then  looking 
for  "  was  a  hypothesis  respecting  the  origin  of 
known  organic  forms  which  assumed  the  operation 
of  no  causes  but  such  as  could  be  proved  to  be  act- 
ually at  work."  "  The  facts  of  variability,"  contin- 
ues Huxley,  "of  the  struggle  for  existence,  of  adap- 
tation   to  conditions,  were   notorious  enough  ;  but 

^  Quoted  by  Huxley  in  the  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles 
Darwin,"  by  his  son,  vol.  I.,  p.  538. 


CONTROVERSr  AND  PROGRESS.  67 

none  of  us  had  suspected  that  the  road  to  the  heart 
of  the  species  problem  lay  through  them,  until  Dar- 
win and  Wallace  dispelled  the  darkness,  and  the 
beacon-fire  of  the  '  Origin'  guided  the  benighted.'" 

Herbert  Spencer  and  Compeers. 

With  Darwin  came  Herbert  Spencer,  "  the  phi- 
losopher of  Evolution,"  according  to  whom  the  en- 
tire cosmos,  the  universe  of  mind  as  well  as  the 
universe  of  matter,  is  governed  by  Evolution,'  Evo- 
lution being  a  "  cosmical  process,"  which,  as  Grant 

'Op.  cit.,  p.  551. 

"^  It  is  but  just  to  remark  that  an  essay  published  by  Spencer 
in  the  Leader,  in  1852,  constitutes  what  has  been  called  ''  the 
high-water  mark  of  Evolution"  prior  to  Darwin.  In  this  essay 
he  writes  as  follows  :  "  Even  could  the  supporters  of  the  devel- 
opment hypothesis  merely  show  that  the  production  of  species 
by  the  process  of  modification  is  conceivable,  they  would  be  in 
a  better  position  than  their  opponents.  But  they  can  do  much 
more  than  this;  they  can  show  that  the  process  of  modification 
has  effected,  and  is  effecting,  great  changes  in  all  organisms 
subject  to  modifying  influences.  .  .  .  They  can  show  that 
any  existing  species,  animal  or  vegetable,  when  placed  under 
conditions  different  from  its  previous  ones,  immediately  begins 
to  undergo  certain  changes  of  structure  fitting  it  for  the  new 
conditions.  They  can  show  that  in  successive  generations  these 
changes  continue  until  ultimately  the  new  conditions  become 
the  natural  ones.  They  can  show  that  in  cultivated  plants  and 
domesticated  animals,  and  in  the  several  races  of  men,  these 
changes  have  uniformly  taken  place.  They  can  show  that  the 
degrees  of  difference  so  produced  are  often,  as  in  dogs,  greater 
than  those  on  which  distinction  of  species  are,  in  other  cases, 
founded.  They  can  show  that  it  is  a  matter  of  dispute  whether 
some  of  these  modified  forms  are  varieties  or  modified  species. 
And  thus  they  can  show  that  throughout  all  organic  nature 
there  is  at  work  a  modifying  influence  of  the  kind  they  assign 
as  the  cause  of  these  specific  differences;  an  influence  which, 
though  slow  in  its  action,  does  in  time,  if  the  circumstances  de- 
mand it,  produce  marked  changes ;  an  influence  which,  to  all 
appearance,  would  produce  in  the  millions  of  years,  and  under 
the  great  varieties  of  condition  which  geological  records  im- 
ply, any  amount  of  change." 


68  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

Allen  phrases  it,  is  one  and  continuous  "  from  neb- 
ula to  man,  from  star  to  soul,  from  atom  to  so- 
ciety." 

Since  its  publication,  the  theory  advocated  by 
Darwin  has  undergone  many  modifications.  Much 
has  been  added  to  it,  and  much  has  been  eliminated 
from  it.  Among  those  who  have  discussed  it  most 
critically,  and  suggested  amendments  and  improve- 
ments are  Moritz  Wagner,  Nageli,  Huxley,  Mivart, 
Wallace,  Spencer,  Weismann,  Cope,  Hyatt  and 
Brooks,  not  to  mention  scores  of  others  who  have 
distinguished  themselves  by  their  contributions  to 
Darwinian  literature.  But  whatever  may  now  be 
the  views  entertained  regarding  natural  selection  as 
a  factor  of  organic  Evolution,  the  theory  of  Evolu- 
tion itself,  far  from  being  impaired,  has  been  gaining 
strength  from  day  to  day,  and  is,  we  are  assured  by 
its  advocates,  finding  new  arguments  in  its  favor  in 
every  new  discovery  in  biology  and  physical  science. 
Such  being  the  case,  it  is,  we  are  told,  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time,  and  a  very  short  time  at  that,  until 
every  man  who  is  competent  to  weigh  evidence, 
shall  be  compelled  to  announce  his  formal  accept- 
ance of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  however  much  he 
may  now  be  opposed  to  it,  and  however  much  it 
may  seem  counter  to  his  preconceived  notions,  or  to 
traditions  which  he  has  long  regarded  as  sacred  and 

inviolable. 

Science  and  Philosophy. 

Evolution,  it  is  pertinent  here  to  observe,  may 
be  considered  from  two  points  of  view,  a  fact  which 
it  is  of  prime  importance  always  to  bear  in  mind.    It 


CONTROVERSr  AND  PROGRESS.  69 

may  be  regarded  as  a  scientific  theory,  devised  to 
explain  the  origination  of  the  higher  from  the  lower, 
the  more  complex  and  differentiated  from  the  simple 
and  undifferentiated,  in  inorganic  and  organic  bod- 
ies, or  it  may  be  viewed  as  d.  philosophical  system,  de- 
signed  to  explain  the  manifold  phenomena  of  mat- 
ter and  life  by  the  operation  of  secondary  causes 
alone,  to  the  exclusion  of  a  personal  Creator.  In 
the  restricted  sense  in  which  we  are  considering  it,  it 
is  a  scientific  hypothesis  intended  to  explain  the  ori- 
gin and  transmutation  of  species  in  the  animal  and 
vegetable  worlds,  by  laws  and  processes  disclosed  by 
the  study  of  nature. 

Important  as  it  is,  however,  it  is  not  always  an 
easy  matter  to  keep  the  scientific  theory  separated 
from  the  philosophical  system.  Hence,  naturalists 
and  philosophers  are  continually  intruding  on  each 
other's  territory.  The  naturalist  philosophizes, 
and  the  philosopher,  if  I  may  give  a  new  meaning 
to  an  old  word,  naturalizes.  For  naturalists  and 
physicists,  as  all  are  aware,  are  very  much  given  to 
making  excursions  into  the  domain  of  metaphysics 
and  to  substituting  speculations  for  rigid  inductions 
from  observed  facts. 

And  metaphysicians  sin  in  a  similar  manner  by 
attempting  to  explain,  by  methods  of  their  own,  the 
various  phenomena  of  the  material  world,  and  in 
seeking  by  simple  a  priori  reasons  to  evolve  from 
their  inner  consciousness  a  logical  system  of  the 
physical  universe.  The  result  is  inextricable  con- 
fusion and  errors  without  number.  It  is  neither 
science  nor  philosophy,  but  a  mixtum  compositum, 


70  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

which  not  only  gives  false  views  of  nature  but  still 
falser  views  of  the  Author  of  nature,  if  indeed  it 
does  not  positively  ignore  Him  and  relegate  Him  to 
the  region  of  the  unknowable. 

Such  a  philosophy,  if  philosophy  it  can  be 
called,  is  that  of  Herbert  Spencer,  which  is  now  so 
much  the  vogue;  a  philosophy  which  attempts  to 
explain  the  origin  and  constitution  of  the  cosmos  by 
the  sole  operation  of  natural  causes,  and  which 
recognizes  only  force  and  matter  as  the  efficient 
cause  of  the  countless  manifestations  of  nature  and 
mind  which  constitute  the  province  of  science  and 
psychology. 

I  would  not,  however,  have  it  inferred  that  I 
regard  science — and  by  this  I  mean  natural  and 
physical  science  —  and  metaphysics  as  opposed  to 
each  other.  Far  from  it.  They  mutually  assist  and 
supplement  one  another,  and  a  true  philosophy  of 
the  cosmos  is  possible  only  when  there  is  a  perfect 
synthesis  between  the  inductions  of  science  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  deductions  of  metaphysics  on  the 
other. 

Anticipations  of  Discoveries. 
It  is  indeed  remarkable,  even  in  the  subject 
under  discussion,  how  frequently  philosophers,  like 
poets,  seem  to  have  proleptic  views  of  nature  that 
are  not  disclosed  to  men  of  science  until  long  after- 
wards. All  who  are  familiar  with  the  history  of 
science  and  philosophy  will  be  able,  without  diffi- 
culty, to  call  to  mind  some  of  the  marvelous  scien- 
tific intuitions  of  Pythagoras,  Aristotle,  St.  Gregory 
of  Nyssa,  St.  Augustine,  and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 


CONTROVERSr  AND  PROGRESS.  71 

The  teachings  of  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  of  St. 
Augustine  were  in  this  respect  specially  remarkable. 
I  have  elsewhere'  shown  that  the  views  of  St.  Greg- 
ory respecting  the  origin  of  the  visible  universe, 
were  far  more  precise  and  comprehensive  than  were 
those  of  the  Ionian  schools,  and  that  he  it  was  who 
in  very  truth  first  laid  the  foundations  of  the  nebu- 
lar hypothesis,  elaborated  and  rounded  out  long 
centuries  afterwards  by  Laplace,  Herschel,  and 
Faye.  It  was  the  great  bishop  of  Hippo  who  first 
laid  down  the  principles  of  theistic  Evolution  essen- 
tially as  they  are  held  to-day.'  He  taught  that  God 
created  the  various  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable 
life,  not  actually  but  potentially ;  that  He  created 
them  derivatively  and  by  the  operation  of  natural 
causes.  And  the  teaching  of  St.  Augustine  respect- 
ing potential  creation  was  that  which  was  approved 
and  followed  by  that  great  light  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 

In  modern  times  Hobbes  spoke  of  the  principle 
of  struggle — bellum  omnium  contra  omnes — sug- 
gested by  Heraclitus  and  insisted  on  so  strongly  by 
contemporary  evolutionists.  In  discussing  the  scho- 
lastic doctrine  of  real  specific  essences,  Locke  devel- 
opes  the  idea  of  the  continuity  of  species,  the  central 
idea  of  Darwinism  and  of  the  theory  of  organic  Evo- 
lution. He  also  speaks  of  the  adaptation  of  organic 
arrangements  to  "  the  neighborhood  of  the  bodies 
that  surround  us,"  and  thus  indicates  a  factor  on 
which  modern  evolutionists  lay  much  stress  when 

'  "  Bible,  Science  and  Faith,"  part  I,  chaps,  iii  and  iv. 
''Ibid. 


72  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

they  discourse  on  "  the  circumstances  of  the  en- 
vironment," the  conditions  of  life,  or  the  monde 
ambiant,  of  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire.  Leibnitz  in  his 
"  Protogaea  "  expresses  similar  views  on  the  continuity 
of  species,  that  is,  of  a  graduated  series  of  living 
forms  "  that  in  each  remove  differ  very  little  from 
one  another."  Distinct  evolutionary  views  had  like- 
wise been  propounded  by  Spinoza,  Herder  and 
Schelling,  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  them  here. 
In  its  growth,  then,  the  modern  theory  of  Evolu- 
tion may  aptly  be  compared  with  that  of  the  cen- 
tury plant.  For  long  generations  it  had  been  gath- 
ering material  and  strength,  but  at  last,  suddenly 
and  almost  unexpectedly,  it  blossomed  forth  into  a 
working  hypothesis  of  colossal  proportions  and  uni- 
versal application.  Philosophy  anticipated  many,  if 
not  all  its  leading  tenets,  but  it  was  inductive  science 
which  placed  it  on  the  foundation  on  which  it  now 
rests  and  which  gave  it  the  popularity  that  it  now 
enjoys. 

Species  and  Creation. 

The  pervading  idea  of  Evolution,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  one  of  change,  the  idea  of  integration  and 
differentiation.  As  applied  to  plants  and  animals  it 
is  the  development,  by  the  action  of  natural  causes, 
of  the  higher  from  the  lower  forms. 

The  various  forms  of  animal  and  plant  life  ac- 
cording to  this  view  are  genetically  related  to  one 
another.  Species  are  therefore  not  immutable  as 
is  generally  imagined,  but  mutable.  What  we  call 
species  are  the  results  of  descent  with  modification, 


CONTRO  VERS r  A ND  PROGRESS.  73 

and  instead  of  there  having  been  as  many  species  of 
Hving  beings  in  the  beginning  as  there  are  now,  as 
Linnaeus  believed,  there  was  at  first,  as  Darwin 
taught,  only  one  primordial  form,  and  from  this  one 
form,  all  that  infinitude  of  forms  of  vegetable  and 
animal  life,  which  we  now  behold,  is  descended. 

The  question  raised,  therefore,  is  manifestly  one 
that  appeals  to  us  .for  a  solution.  I  again  ask,  are 
all  the  species  of  animals  and  plants,  which  have  ex- 
isted on  the  earth  since  the  dawn  of  life,  the  results 
of  separate  and  successive  creations  by  an  almighty 
Power,  as  has  so  long  been  believed,  or  are  they 
rather  the  product  of  Evolution,  acting  through  long 
ages  and  in  accordance  with  certain  fixed  natural 
laws  and  processes? 

Until  the  celebrated  controversy,  already  men- 
tioned, between  Cuvier  and  Geoffroy,  there  were,  as 
we  have  seen,  comparatively  few  who  were  not  firm 
believers  in  the  doctrine  of  special  creations,  at  least 
of  all  the  higher  forms  of  life.  Subsequent  to  this 
event,  the  number,  especially  among  naturalists, 
of  those  who  favored  the  development  hypothesis 
began  gradually  to  increase.  After  the  publication  of 
Darwin's  famous  "  Origin  of  Species,"  the  advocates 
of  Evolution  rallied  their  forces  in  a  remarkable  man- 
ner, and  before  many  years  had  elapsed  a  large 
majority  of  the  working  naturalists  of  the  world 
were  professed  evolutionists. 

Evolutionists  and  Anti- Evolutionists. 

Of  course  there  were  many,  even  among  the 
ablest  scientists  of  the  age,  who  still  withheld  their 


74  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

assent.  The  most  distinguished  of  these,  as  we 
have  already  learned,  was  Professor  Louis  Agassiz, 
who  remained  a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  new 
doctrine  until  the  day  of  his  death.  Indeed,  in  the 
last  course  of  lectures  he  ever  gave,  we  find  a  strong 
arraignment  of  the  development  hypothesis,  a  hy- 
pothesis which  was  fascinating  indeed,  but  one, 
so  Agassiz  declared,  that  was  negatived  by  the  facts 
of  nature  and  misleading  and  mischievous  in  its 
tendencies.  Even  to-day  the  illustrious  naturalist 
has  sympathizers  and  followers  and  that,  too,  among 
the  ablest  and  most  conspicuous  representatives  of 
modern  science.  Among  anti-evolutionists,  Hving 
or  recently  deceased,  I  need  instance  only  such 
recognized  savants  as  the  noted  geologists,  Sir  J,  W. 
Dawson,  Barrande,  Davidson,  Grand  Eury,  Car- 
ruthers,  and  that  veteran  biologist — the  rival  of 
Pasteur  on  the  importance  and  brilliance  of  his  re- 
searches on  the  lower  forms  of  life — the  late  Profes- 
sor P.  J.  van  Beneden,  of  the  great  Catholic  univer- 
sity of  Louvain.'  In  referring  to  the  subject  the 
distinguished  Belgian  professor  asserts :  "  It  is  evi- 


^  The  distinguished  French  savant,  the  Marquis  de  Nadail- 
lac,  is  often  spoken  of  as  an  anti-evolutionist,  but  this  is  an 
error.  So  far  he  is  neither  an  evolutionist  nor  an  anti-evolu- 
tionist ;  he  mereh'  suspends  judgment.  Before  the  anthro- 
pological section  of  the  International  Catholic  Scientific  Con- 
gress, assembled  last  year  at  Brussels,  he  expressed  himself  on 
the  subject  as  follows  :  "  Pour  ma  part,  si  je  ne  suis  guere  dis- 
pose a  admettre  les  conclusions  de  I'ecole  evolutioniste,  je  ne 
puis  non  plus  les  rejeter  absolument.  Le  jury  en  Ecosse,  outre 
la  reponse  habituelle,  a  le  droit,  sans  se  prononcer  sur  le  fait  en 
lui-m^me,  de  repondre  not  froven  —  cela  n'est  pas  prouve. 
Telle  est  la  disposition  de  mon  esprit;  telle  est  aujourd'hui  ma 
conclusion ;  et  je  crois  qu'elle  sera  celle  de  tous  ceux  qui  abord- 
eront  cette  etude  sans  parti  pris  et  avec  I'unique   desir  d'arriver 


CONTROVERSr  AND  PROGRESS.  75 

dent  to  all  those  who  place  facts  above  hypotheses 
and  prejudices,  that  spontaneous  generation,  as  well 
as  the  transformation  of  species,  does  not  exist,  at 
least  if  we  only  consider  the  present  epoch.  We 
are  leaving  the  domain  of  science  if  we  take  our 
arms  from  anterior  epochs.  We  cannot  accept  any- 
thing as  a  fact  which  is  not  capable  of  proof." ' 

At  the  present  day,  among  men  of  science,  evolu- 
tionists outnumber  creationists  fully  as  much  as  the 
latter  outnumbered  the  former  a  half  century  ago. 
It  is  only  rarely  that  we  meet  a  scientist  who  does 
not  profess  Evolution  of  some  form  or  other,  or  who 
does  not  at  least  think  that  the  older  views  regard- 
ing creation  and  the  origin  of  species  must  be  materi- 
ally modified  in  order  to  harmonize  with  the  latest 
conclusions  of  science. 

No  Via  Media  Possible. 

All  the  lines  of  thought  which  we  have  been 
following  converge,  then,  as  has  already  been  ob- 
served, towards  one  point — the  origin,  or  rather  the 
genesis,  of  species,  and  their  succession  and  distribu- 
tion in  space  and  time.  Between  the  two  theories, 
that  of  creation  and  that  of  Evolution,  the  lines 
are  drawn  tautly,  and  one  or  the  other  theory  must 
be  accepted  by  all  who  make  any  pretensions  intelli- 
gently to  discuss  the  subject.  No  compromise,  no 
via  media,  is  possible.  We  must  needs  be  either 
creationists  or  evolutionists.     We  cannot  be  both. 


a  la  verite."  "  Compte  Rendu,"  Section  d'  Anthropologic,  p.  305. 
Cf.  also  "Probleme  de  la  Vie,"  pp.  175-178,  by  the  Marquis  de 
Nadaillac. 

^  Van  Beneden's  "Animal  Parasites  and  Messmates,"  p.  106. 


76  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

The  theory  of  emanation  is  not  here  considered,  it 
being  contrary  to  the  principles  of  sound  philosophy 
as  well  as  to  the  teachings  of  true  science.  How 
shall  we,  then,  regard  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 
species,  and  what  views,  expressed  not  in  general 
terms  but  carefully  formulated,  have  been  enter- 
tained by  the  great  thinkers  of  the  world  on  this 
all-important,  and,  at  present,  all-absorbing  topic? 

Dr.  Whewell,  the  learned  historian  of  the  "  Induct- 
ive Sciences,"  in  referring  to  the  forms  of  life  of 
geological  times  says:  "  Either  we  must  accept  the 
doctrine  of  the  transmutation  of  species,  and  must 
suppose  that  the  organized  species  of  one  geological 
epoch  were  transmuted  into  those  of  another,  by 
some  long-continued  agency  of  natural  causes,  or 
else  we  must  believe  in  many  successive  acts  of 
creation  and  extinction  of  species,  out  of  the  com- 
mon course  of  nature  ;  acts  which  therefore  we  may 
properly  call  miraculous."  ' 

Whewell,  in  common  with  the  majority  of  his 
contemporaries — he  wrote  his  masterly  work  over 
fifty  years  ago — and  in  common  with  the  large  body 
of  non-scientific  people  still  living,  unhesitatingly 
accepted  the  doctrine  of  "  many  successive  acts  of 
creation,"  as  against  the  theory  of  the  transmutation 
of  species,  which  he  regards  as  negatived  by  "  an  in- 
disputable preponderance"  of  evidence  against  it. 
The  Miltonic  Hypothesis. 

But  even  accepting  the  creational  hypothesis, 
how  are  we  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  appearance 

^" History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,"  vol.  II,  p.  564. 


CONTROVERSr  AND  PROGRESS.  77 

of  new  species?  "Are  these  new  species,"  asks  the 
erudite  Master  of  Trinity,  "gradually  evolved  from 
some  embryo  substance  ?  Or  do  they  suddenly 
start  from  the  ground,  as  in  the  creation  of  the  poet  ?  " 

"  Perfect  forms 
Limbed  and  full  grown :  out  of  the  ground  up  rose, 
As  from  his  lair,  the  wild  beast  where  he  wons 
In  forest  wild,  in  thicket,  brake,  or  den  ;     .     .     . 
The  grassy  clods  now  calved ;  now  half  appear'd 
The  tawny  lion,  pawing  to  get  free 
His  hinder  parts,  then  springs  as  broke  from  bonds, 
And  rampant  shakes  his  brinded  mane ;  the  ounce. 
The  libbard,  and  the  tiger,  as  the  mole 
Rising,  the  crumbled  earth  above  them  threw 
In  hillocks;  the  swift  stag  from  underground 
Bore  up  his  branching  head ;  scarce  from  his  mould 
Behemoth,  biggest  born  of  earth,  upheaved 
His  vastness:  fleeced  the  flocks  and  bleating  rose. 
As  plants ;  ambiguous  between  sea  and  land 
The  river-horse  and  scaly  crocodile. 
At  once  come  forth  whatever  creeps  the  ground, 
Insect  or  worm." ' 

We  have  here  what  Huxley  calls  the  "  Miltonic 
hypothesis"  fully  developed  even  in  its  minutest  de- 
tails. But  this  view  of  special  creation,  it  is  but 
just  to  state,  may  be  offset  by  another  passage,  less 
frequently  quoted  it  is  true,  from  the  great  bard, 
which  as  clearly  tells  of  creation  by  Evolution.  In 
both  instances  the  archangel  Raphael  appears  as  the 


»"  Paradise  Lobt,"  Book  VII. 


78  E  VOL  U Tl ON  A  ND  DOGMA . 

speaker.  And  if,  in  the  verses  just  quoted,  the  poet 
^s  in  accord  with  the  Hteral  interpreters  of  the  Gene- 
siac  account  of  creation,  in  the  following  lines  he  re- 
flects the  ideas  of  creation  entertained  by  St.  Augus- 
tine and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  Having  spoken  of 
"one  first  matter,"  and  its  subsequent  progressive 
development,  the  poet  continues : — 

"  So  from  the  root 
Springs  lighter  the  green  stalk,  from  thence  the  leaves 
More  airy,  last  the  bright  consummate  flower 
Spirit  odorous  breathes:  flowers  and  their  fruit, 
Man's  nourishment,  by  gradual  scale  sublimed, 
To  vital  spirits  aspire,  to  animal, 
To  intellectual;  give  both  life  and  sense, 
Fancy  and  understanding;  whence  the  soul 
Reason  receives,  and  reason  is  her  being, 
Discursive  or  intuitive;  discourse 
Is  oftest  yours,  the  latter  most  is  ours, 
Differing  but  in  degree,  of  kind  the  same." 

Book  V. 

Again,  were  these  new  species  created  by  single 
or  multiple  pairs  ;  and,  if  by  multiple  pairs,  was 
there  one,  or  were  there  many  centers  of  distribu- 
tion for  the  individual  species  ? 

Views  of  Agassiz. 

According  to  Linnaeus,  the  great  Swedish  nat- 
uralist, who  voiced  not  only  the  opinion  of  his  time, 
but  of  nearly  all  creationists  since  his  time,  species 
were  created  by  single  pairs,  and  the  present  num- 
ber is  equal  to  that  which  was  created  in  the  begin- 


CONTROVERSY  AND  PROGRESS.  79 

ning.'  According  to  Schouw,  whose  views  were 
shared  by  the  eminent  botanist,  Alphonse  de  Can- 
dolle,  in  the  earUer  portion  of  his  career,  there  was 
*'  a  double  or  multiple  origin  of  species,  at  least  of 
some  species."  Professor  L.  Agassiz,  however,  went 
much  farther.  He  asserted  not  only  the  multiplic- 
ity of  species,  but  also  denied  that  there  was  "  any 
necessary  genetic  connection  among  individuals  of 
the  same  species,  or  of  any  original  localization  more 
restricted  than  the  area  now  occupied  by  the  spe- 
cies." According  to  this  eminent  student  of  nature, 
all  animals  and  plants  have  occupied,  from  the  be- 
ginning, those  natural  boundaries  within  which  they 
stand  to  one  another  in  such  harmonious  relations. 
Pines  originate  in  forests,  heaths  in  heaths,  grasses  in 
prairies,  bees  in  hives,  herrings  in  shoals,  and  men  in 
nations.  He  asserts  that  "  all  animals  originated  in 
vast  numbers — indeed,  in  the  average  number  charac- 
teristic of  their  species  —  over  the  whole  of  their 
geographical  area,  whether  its  surface  be  continuous, 
or  disconnected  by  sea,  lakes,  rivers,  or  by  differ- 
ences of  level  above  the  sea,  etc.'"  Elsewhere  he 
declares:  "There  are  in  animals  peculiar  adaptations 
which  are  characteristic  of  their  species,  and  which 
cannot  be  supposed  to  have  arisen  from  subordinate 
influences.  Those  which  live  in  shoals  cannot  be 
supposed  to  have  been  created  in  single  pairs. 
Those  which  are  made  to  be  the  food  of  others  can- 
not have  been  created  in  the  same  proportions  as 

^"Species  tot  numeramus  quot  diversae  formse  in  principio 
sunt  creatse."     "  Philosophia  Botanica,"  No.  157. 

*"  An  Essay  on  Classification,"  p.  59. 


80  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

those  which  live  upon  them.  Those  which  are 
everywhere  found  in  innumerable  specimens,  must 
have  been  introduced  in  numbers  capable  of  main- 
taining their  normal  proportions  to  those  which  live 
isolated,  and  are  comparatively  and  constantly  fewer. 
For  we  know  that  this  harmony  in  the  numerical 
proportions  between  animals  is  one  of  the  great 
laws  of  nature.  The  circumstance  that  species  occur 
within  definite  limits,  where  no  obstacles  prevent 
their  wider  distribution,  leads  to  the  further  infer- 
ence that  these  limits  were  assigned  to  them  from 
the  beginning ;  and  so  we  should  come  to  the  final 
conclusion  that  the  order  which  prevails  throughout 
nature  is  intentional,  and  that  it  is  regulated  by  the 
limits  marked  out  the  first  day  of  creation,  and  that 
it  has  been  maintained  unchanged  through  ages, 
with  no  other  modifications  than  those  which  the 
higher  intellectual  powers  of  man  enable  him  to  im- 
pose on  some  few  animals  more  closely  connected 
with  him."' 

According  to  Agassiz,  therefore,  not  only  is  the 
origin  of  species  supernatural,  but  their  general 
geographical  distribution  is  also  supernatural.  And 
more  than  this.  Not  only  are  all  the  phenomena  of 
origin,  distribution  and  extinction  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life,  to  be  directly  referred  to  the  Divine 
will,  but  also,  he  will  have  it,  "  Every  adaptation  of 
species  to  climate,  and  of  species  to  species,  is  as  ab- 
original, and,  therefore,  as  inexplicable,  as  are  the 
organic  forms  themselves."     "  The  facts  of  geology," 


'•  Lake  Superior,"  p.  337. 


CONTROVERSr  AND  PROGRESS.  81 

he  tells  us,  "  exhibit  the  simultaneous  creation,  and 
the  simultaneous  destruction  of  entire  fauna,  and  a 
coincidence  between  these  changes  in  the  organic 
world  and  the  great  physical  changes  our  earth  has 
undergone."  "  The  origin  of  the  great  variety  of 
types  of  animals  and  plants,  can  never,"  he  declares, 
"  be  attributed  to  the  limited  influence  of  monoto- 
nous physical  causes  which  always  act  in  the  same 
way."  On  the  contrary,  it  necessarily  displays  "  the 
intervention  of  a  Creator  "  in  the  most  striking  man- 
ner, in  every  stage  of  the  history  of  the  world. 

Agassiz  returns  to  these  points  time  and  again, 
and  illustrates  his  argument  in  ways  that  are  always 
interesting,  if  not  always  conclusive.  As  a  r6sum^ 
of  his  teaching  respecting  the  origin,  distribution 
and  extinction  of  animals  and  plants,  and  as  an  indi- 
cation of  his  spirit  of  reverence  and  piety,  nothing 
can  be  more  explicit  or  edifying  than  the  following 
paragraphs  taken  from  his  profound  "  Essay  on 
Classification,"  so  frequently  quoted  : 

"  The  products  of  what  are  commonly  called 
physical  agents  are  everywhere  the  same,  that  is, 
upon  the  whole  surface  of  the  globe ;  and  have  al- 
ways been  the  same,  that  is,  during  all  geological 
periods ;  while  organized  beings  are  everywhere 
different,  and  have  differed  in  all  ages.  Between 
two  such  series  of  phenomena  there  can  be  no  causal 
or  genetic  connection. 

"  The  combination  in  time  and  space  of  all  these 
thoughtful  conceptions,  exhibits  not  only  thought ; 
it  shows  also  premeditation,  power,  wisdom,  great- 
ness, prescience,   omniscience,  providence.     In  one 


82  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

word,  all  these  facts,  in  their  natural  connection,  pro- 
claim aloud  the  one  God,  whom  we  may  know,  adore 
and  love ;  and  natural  history  must,  in  good  time, 
become  the  analysis  of  the  thoughts  of  the  Creator 
of  the  universe,  as  manifested  in  the  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms,  as  well  as  in  the  inorganic 
world."' 

Evolution. 

As  against  the  doctrine  of  separate  and  successive 
creations,  we  have,  as  already  stated,  the  theory  of 
the  origin  of  species  by  derivation.  But  as  in  the 
creational  doctrine  there  are  different  views  respect- 
ing the  manner  in  which  species  appeared,  so,  like- 
wise are  there,  according  to  Evolution,  different 
hypotheses  regarding  the  origin  and  devolopment  of 
the  divers  forms  of  organized  beings. 

In  the  first  edition  of  his  "  Origin  of  Species " 
Darwin  expresses  the  belief  that  all  "  animals  have 
descended  from  at  most  only  four  or  five  progeni- 
tors, and  plants  from  an  equal  or  lesser  number." 
In  the  second  edition  of  his  work  he  arrives  at  quite 
a  different  conclusion  and  infers  that  "  probably  all 
organic  beings  which  have  ever  lived  on  the  earth 
have  descended  from  some  one  primordial  form, 
into  which  life  was  first  breathed  by  the  Creator." 

The  majority  of  evolutionists,  who  admit  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God,  accept  the  Darwinian 
view  that  all  the  forms  of  life  at  present  existing  in 
the  world  are  derived,  by  the  agency  of  natural 
forces    and    the    influence    of    environment,    from 


'  P.  205 ;  cf.,  also,  chaps,  x  and  xvi,  of  Agassiz'  "  Methods 
of  Studjr  in  Natural  Historj." 


CONTRO  VERS  T  A  ND  PR  OGRESS.  83 

one  primordial  created  form.  Evolutionists  of  the 
atheistic  school,  however,  of  which  Ernst  Haeckel  is 
the  chief  representative,  contend  not  only  that  all 
species  of  animals  and  plants  are  descended  from  a 
speck  of  protoplasm,  a  simple,  structureless  primitive 
moneron,  but  also  that  this  primordial  speck  of  pro- 
toplasm was  not  the  work  of  the  Deity,  but  was  the 
result  solely  of  the  operation  of  some  one  of  the 
physical  forces  on  brute  matter. 

But  excluding  the  philosophical  theories  which 
have  been  built  on  Evolution,  and  the  religious  dis- 
cussions to  which  it  has  given  rise,  let  us  proceed  to 
examine  the  evidences  for  and  against  it  as  a  scien- 
tific theory.  Let  us  inquire  what  are  the  grounds 
for  the  almost  universal  acceptance  of  this  theory  by 
contemporary  scientists,  and  see  whether  the  argu- 
ments advanced  in  its  support  are  in  accord  with  the 
canons  of  sound  logic  and  the  principles  of  true 
philosophy.  The  question  is  entirely  one  of  natural 
science,  not  of  metaphysics,  and  hence  one  of  evi- 
dence which  is  more  or  less  tangible.  What,  then, 
are  the  evidences  of  organic  Evolution  to  which 
modern  scientists  usually  appeal  ?  This  is  the  ques- 
tion to  which  all  that  precedes  is  but  little  more 
than  a  preamble,  and  a  question,  too,  that  well  de- 
serves our  closest  and  most  serious  consideration. 
I  shall  endeavor  to  give  the  answer  succinctly,  but 
fairly,  in  the  following  chapter. 


B 


CHAPTER  VII. 

EVIDENCES   OF   EVOLUTION. 
Systems  of  Classification. 

EFORE  discussing  the  evidences  of  Evolution, 
or  examining  the  arguments  advanced  in  its 
support,  it  is  advisable  to  have  some  idea  of  the 
different  systems  of  classification  which  have  ob- 
tained in  various  periods  of  the  history  of  science, 
and  to  learn  on  what  such  systems  were  based. 
Have  naturalists  in  all  ages  employed  essentially  the 
same  systems  of  classification,  or  have  their  systems 
been  widely  different,  if  not  contradictory?  Are 
scientific  classifications  expressions  of  natural  ar- 
rangements  existing  in  animated  nature,  or  are  they 
but  artificial  devices  for  coordinating  our  knowledge 
of  nature  and  facilitating  our  investigations  ?  Have 
species,  genera,  families,  orders,  classes  and  branches, 
a  real  or  an  ideal  existence?  Are  they  manifestly 
disclosed  in  the  plan  of  creation  or  are  they  but 
arbitrary  categories  hit  upon  by  naturalists  as  con- 
venient aids  in  arrangement  and  research  ?  These 
are  a  few  of  the  many  questions  which  present 
themselves  for  an  answer  as  we  approach  the  subject 
of  organic  Evolution.  Others  there  are  also  which 
might  be  discussed  but  we  have  not  space  for  them 
now. 
(84) 


E  VTDENCES  OF  E  VOL  UTION.  85 

The  system  of  classification  of  Aristotle,  and  of 
the  naturalists  of  antiquity  generally,  was  of  the  most 
primitive  character.  It  recognized  but  two  groups, 
Yi\>o<i  and  eI5o9,  genus  and  species.  These  terms,  as 
a  rule,  had  only  a  very  vague  meaning,  and  were 
frequently  made  to  embrace  groups  of  animals  that 
we  should  now  refer  to  orders  and  classes. ' 

This  system,  however,  incomplete  and  mislead- 
ing as  it  was,  prevailed  for  upwards  of  two  thousand 
years,  and  no  serious  attempt  was  made  to  improve 
on  it  until  the  time  of  the  great  naturalist,  Linnaeus. 
He  introduced  new  divisions  and  distinctions,  gave 
to  the  study  of  zoology  an  impetus  which  it  had 
never  received  before,  and  stimulated  research  in  a 
manner  that  was  simply  marvelous.  He  was  the 
first  to  introduce  classes  and  orders  into  the  system  of 
zoology,  in  addition  to  the  vague  genera  and  species 
of  the  ancient  philosophers."  Until  the  appearance 
of  the  *'  Regne  Animal"  of  Cuvier,  in  the  beginning 
of  the  present  century,  the  "Systema  Naturae" 
of  Linnaeus,  first  published  in  1735,  was  the  only 
system  of  classification  which  received  any  recogni- 
tion.    All  other  attempts  at  classification  were  only 


'In  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  first  book  of  his  "  History  of 
Animals"  Aristotle  distinguishes  between  ym; //f7«Tra,  yevrj fieyaJM. 
and  ytvoc  simply.  This  chapter  will  well  repay  perusal  as 
illustrating  the  diversity  of  meanings  given  to  a  word  which  in 
modern  zoology  has  such  a  definite  and  restricted  signification. 
Although  ddoq  had  sometimes  a  wider  meaning  than  we  now 
give  to  this  term,  it  must,  nevertheless,  in  justice  to  the  illustri- 
ous Stagirite,  be  said  that  he  usually  employed  it  in  the  same 
sense  as  naturalists  now  use  the  word  species. 

'Linnaeus  called  the  class,  ^«»«j  sumtMttm  ;  the  order ,  genus 
tntermediurn ;  the  genus,  genus  proximum. 


86  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

modifications  of  the  system  introduced  by  the  Swed- 
ish naturalist.  But  when  Cuvier — "the  greatest 
zoologist  of  all  time,"  as  Agassiz  denominates  him — 
began  his  epoch-making  investigations,  all  was 
changed.  The  divisions  of  Linnaeus  were  based  on 
external  resemblances.  Cuvier,  as  the  result  of  an 
extensive  survey  of  the  whole  animal  kingdom,  and 
more  especially  in  consequence  of  his  marvelous  in- 
vestigations in  the  domain  of  comparative  anatomy, 
a  science  of  which  he  was  the  founder,  demon- 
strated that  classification  should  be  based,  not  on 
external  resemblance,  but  on  internal  structure.  He 
was  indeed  the  first  to  introduce  order  into  chaos, 
and  to  place  the  science  of  zoology  on  something 
Hke  a  firm  foundation. 

Cuvier  and  His  Successors. 

Before  Cuvier's  time  no  attempt  had  been  made 
to  bring  the  various  groups  of  animals  under  a  more 
comprehensive  division  than  that  which  exhibited 
the  whole  animal  kingdom  as  composed  of  verte- 
brates and  invertebrates ;  a  division  which  was  not 
materially  different  from  that  of  Aristotle,  who 
classed  all  animals  as  sanguineous,  ^wa  svatrm,  and 
asanguineous,  ^wa  avat/ia.  But,  in  his  memorable  com- 
munication to  the  French  Academy  in  1812,  Cuvier 
declared  that  his  researches  had  led  him  to  believe 
"  that  all  animals  are  constructed  upon  four  different 
plans,  or  as  it  were,  cast  in  four  different  moulds."  ' 


*The  words  of  the  French  naturalist  on  this  subject  are: 
"  Si  Ton  considdre  le  regne  animal  d'  apres  les  principes  que 
nous  venons  de  poser,  en  se  debarassant  des  prejuges  4tablis  sur 
les  divisions  anciennement  admises,  en  n'ayant  egard  qu'a  Tor- 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  87 

The  names  given  to  the  groups — embranchemens, 
or  branches,  Cuvier  calls  them — constructed  on  these 
four  plans  are  vertebrates,  mollusks,  articulates  and 
radiates.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Cuvier  introduces 
divisions  above  the  classes  of  Linnaeus.  In  addition 
to  this  he  also  interpolates  families  between  orders 
and  genera.  And  then,  again,  the  various  divisions 
of  Cuvier  admit  of  numerous  secondary  divisions, 
such  as  sections,  tribes,  sub-genera  and  others  besides. 

Important  as  was  the  "Systema  Naturae"  in  stimu- 
lating research,  its  influence  was  almost  insignificant 
in  comparison  with  Cuvier's  masterly  "  Lemons  sur 
I'Anatomie  Compar^e,"  and  his  no  less  remarkable 
"  R^gne  Animal,"  and  "  Ossemens  Fossiles."  The 
publication  of  these  chefs-d'oeuvre  not  only  gave  to 
the  study  of  natural  history  a  stimulus  it  had  never 
felt  before,  but  it  was  likewise  the  occasion  of 
numerous  new  systems  of  zoological  classification  of 
various  degrees  of  merit. 

Naturalists  now  vied  with  one  another  in  estab- 
lishing new  divisions,  in  introducing  new  classes, 
orders,  genera  and  species  into  their  systems,  and  in 
claiming,  each  for  his  own  system,  some  special  value 
or  point  of  superiority  not  possessed  by  the  others. 
First  came   the  system  of  Lamarck,  then  those  of 


ganisation  et  a  la  nature  des  animaux,  et  non  pas  a  leur  gran- 
deur, a  leur  utilite,  au  plus  ou  moins  de  connaissance  que  nous 
en  avons,  ou  a  toutes  les  autres  circonstances  accessoires,  on 
trouvera  qu'il  existe  quatre  formes  principales,  quatre  plans 
g^neraux,  si  I'on  peut  s'exprimer  ainsi,  d'apres  lesquels  tous  les 
animaux  semblent  avoir  ete  modeles  et  dont  les  divisions  ulteri- 
eures,  de  quelque  titre  que  les  naturalistes  les  aient  decores,  ne 
sont  que  des  modifications  assez  leg^res,  fondees  sur  le  developpe- 
ment  ou  1'  addition  de  quelques  parties  qui  ne  changent  rien  a 
I'essence  du  plan." 


88  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

De  Blainville,  Ehrenberg,  Burmeister,  Von  Siebold 
and  Stannius,  Leuckart,  Milne-Edwards,  Kolliker, 
Vogt,  Van  Beneden,  Owen,  Von  Baer,  Agassiz, 
Huxley,  Haeckel  and  Ray  Lankester,  not  to  men- 
tion scores  of  others  of  lesser  importance. 

Points  of  View. 

But  what  is  more  striking  than  the  number  of 
zoological  systems  which  our  century  has  produced, 
are  the  diverse  points  of  view  which  systematists 
have  chosen  in  elaborating  their  systems.  The  pre- 
Cuvierian  taxonomists,  as  we  have  seen,  based  their 
schemes  of  classification  on  external  characteristics. 
Cuvier  insisted  that  taxonomy  should  be  based  on 
internal  structure,  and  that  the  structure  of  the  en- 
tire animal  should  be  considered.  Certain  later  sys- 
tematists deemed  this  unnecessary,  and  attempted 
to  build  systems  of  classification  on  the  variations  of 
a  single  organ,  or  on  the  structure  of  the  egg  alone. 
Again,  according  to  Cuvier's  classification,  the 
four  branches  of  the  animal  kingdom  are  distin- 
guished by  four  distinct  plans  of  structure.  Accord- 
ing to  Ehrenberg  "  the  type  of  development  of  ani- 
mals is  one  and  the  same  from  man  to  the  monad." 
According  to  Cuvier  and  his  school,  the  four  types 
of  structure  proceed  along  four  parallel  lines.  Ac- 
cording to  the  evolutionary  school,  however,  the 
entire  animal  kingdom  is  to  be  conceived  as  a  gen- 
ealogical tree,  Stamnibaum,  the  various  branches 
and  twigs,  twiglets  and  leaves  of  which,  are  to  be 
regarded  as  the  classes,  orders,  genera  and  species  of 
which  zoologists  speak. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  89 

At  first  classification  was  based  on  only  superfi- 
cial characteristics.  Now  we  must  take  into  account, 
not  only  external  form  and  internal  structure,  not 
only  anatomical  and  histological  characteristics,  but 
we  must  also  incorporate  in  our  classifications  the 
teachings  of  embryology  and  cytology.  We  must 
study  not  only  bone  and  muscle,  but  investigate  the 
nature  and  structure  of  the  cell,  and  study  the 
embryo  from  its  earliest  to  its  latest  state  of  devel- 
opment. We  can  now  call  no  one  master,  for  the 
days  of  magisier  dixit  have  passed.  Neither  Aris- 
totle, nor  Linnaeus,  nor  Cuvier  nor  any  other  one 
person  is  to  be  our  sole  guide,  but  we  must  per- 
force elaborate  a  system  from  the  combined  ob- 
servations and  generalizations  of  not  only  the 
great  masters  above-mentioned,  but  also  from  those 
of  Schwann  and  Von  Baer,  Johann  and  Fritz 
Miiller,  Kowalewsky  and  Darwin.  We  must  dis- 
card much,  once  accepted  as  true,  which  more  ex- 
act research  has  disproved,  and  combine  into  one 
systematic  whole  the  gleanings  of  truth  which 
are  afforded  by  the  investigations  of  so  many  stu- 
dents in  the  various  departments  of  natural  knowl- 
edge. 

Taxonomic  Divisions. 

Our  brief  reference  to  some  of  the  chief  systems 
of  classification  conducts  us  naturally  to  a  more  im- 
portant topic,  the  nature  of  the  various  categories 
which  we  have  been  considering. 

Have  branches,  classes,  orders,  families,  genera 
and   species  a  real  existence  in  nature,  or  are  they 


90  EVOLU TION  A ND  D OGMA . 

merely  more  or  less  successful  devices  of  scientific 
men  to  arrange  and  correlate  the  facts  and  phe- 
nomena of  nature?  Are  the  divisions  which  natural- 
ists have  introduced  into  their  systems  artificial  and 
arbitrary,  or  have  they  rather  been  instituted  by  the 
Divine  Intelligence  as  the  categories  of  His  mode  of 
thinking?  Are  they  but  the  inventions  of  the  hu- 
man mind  or  have  "  the  relations  and  proportions 
which  exist  throughout  the  animal  and  vegetable 
worlds  an  intellectual  and  ideal  connection  in  the 
mind  of  the  Creator?"  "  Have  we,  perhaps,"  asks 
the  eloquent  Agassiz,  "  thus  far  been  only  the  un- 
conscious interpreters  of  a  Divine  conception,  in  our 
attempts  to  expound  nature  ?  And  when  in  the 
pride  of  our  philosophy  we  thought  that  we  were  in- 
venting systems  of  science,  and  classifying  creation 
by  the  force  of  our  own  reason,  have  we  followed 
only  and  reproduced  in  our  imperfect  expressions, 
the  plan  whose  foundations  were  laid  in  the  dawn  of 
creation,  and  the  development  of  which  we  are  labo- 
riously studying,  thinking,  as  we  put  together  and 
arrange  our  fragmentary  knowledge,  that  we  are  in- 
troducing order  into  chaos  anew  ?  Is  this  order  the 
result  of  the  exertions  of  human  skill  and  ingenuity ; 
or  is  it  inherent  in  the  objects  themselves,  so  that 
the  intelligent  student  of  natural  history  is  led  un- 
consciously, by  the  study  of  the  animal  kingdom 
itself,  to  these  conclusions,  the  great  divisions  under 
which  he  arranges  animals  being  indeed  but  the 
headings  to  the  chapter  of  the  great  book  which  he 
is  reading." ' 

* "  Essa^  on  Classification,"  pp.  8,  9. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  91 

On  a  correct  answer  to  this  last  all-import- 
ant question  depends,  in  great  measure,  the  truth 
or  falsity  of  the  theory  of  organic  Evolution.  It 
is  a  shibboleth  which  cannot  be  evaded,  a  crux 
which  must  be  explained  before  an  intelligent  dis- 
cussion of  the  evidences  of  Evolution  is  even  pos- 
sible. 

Plato's  "  Grand  Ideas." 

According  to  Plato,  "  the  world  of  particular 
things  is  somehow  determined  by  preexisting  uni- 
versal ideas."  Species  and  genera,  therefore,  are  but 
expressions  of  the  ideas  of  the  Creator ;  and  classifi- 
cations of  animals  and  plants,  according  to  types, 
are  but  translations  of  the  thoughts  of  God ;  expres- 
sions of  grand  ideas  which  from  all  eternity  have 
been  before  the  Divine  mind.  Types,  then,  are  but 
the  copy ;  the  Divine  ideas,  the  pattern  or  arche- 
type. Species,  as  Plato  conceived  them,  were  im- 
mutable, and  organic  Evolution,  as  now  understood, 
was,  accordingly,  impossible. 

During  the  Middle  Ages,  Plato's  doctrine  of 
types  was  accepted  without  question,  and  species 
were  looked  upon  as  being  as  immutable  as  the 
rules  of  dialectics,  as  unchangeable  as  truth  itself. 
Thus  the  great  Scotus  Erigena,  probably  the 
profoundest  philosopher  of  his  time,  declares  that 
"  that  art  which  divides  genera  into  species,  and  re- 
solves species  into  genera,  which  is  called  dialectics, 
is  not  the  product  of  human  ingenuity,  but  has  its 
origin  in  the  nature  of  things  and  is  due  to  the 
Author  of  all  arts  which  are  true  arts,  and  has  been 


92  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

simply  discovered  by  the  wise."  '  But  this  classifi- 
cation, this  division  into  species  and  genera,  which, 
according  to  Erigena,  is  something  not  artificial  and 
conventional,  but  something  that  is  real  and  Divine, 
applied,  in  the  estimation  of  most  philosophers 
prior  to  the  time  of  Darwin,  not  only  to  logic  and 
metaphysics  but  also  to  the  natural  sciences  as 
well. 

Linnaeus  held  similar  views.  He  tells  us  ex- 
plicitly that  "  the  number  of  species  is  equal  to  the 
number  of  divers  forms  which  the  Infinite  Being 
created  in  the  beginning ;  which  forms,  according  to 
the  prescribed  laws  of  generation,  produced  others, 
but  always  like  unto  themselves." ' 

Cuvier  on  Species. 

But  the  strongest  and  most  eminent  advocate  of 
the  creation  and  fixity  of  species  was  Cuvier.  In  the 
introduction  to  his  "  Regne  Animal "  he  asserts  that 
"  there  is  no  proof  that  all  the  differences  which  now 
distinguish  organized  beings  are  such  as  may  have 
been  produced  by  circumstances.  All  that  has  been 
advanced  upon  this  subject  is  hypothetical;  experi- 
ence seems  to  show,  on  the  contrary',  that,  in  the 
actual  state  of  things,  varieties  are  confined  within 


'  "Intelligitur  quod  ars  ilia,  quae  dividet  genera  in  species  et 
species  in  genera  resolvit,  quae  6ia7.eK-iKTj  dicitur,  non  ab  humanis 
machinationibus  sit  facta,  sed  in  natura  rerum  ab  Auctore 
omnium  artium,  quse  verae  artes  sunt,  condita  et  a  sapientibus 
inventa."     *'  De  Divisione  Naturae,"  iv,  4. 

*"  Species  tot  sunt,  quot  diversas  formas  ab  initio  produxit 
Infinitum  Ens;  quae  formae,  secundum  generationis  inditas  leges, 
produxere  plures,  at  sibi  semper  similes."  "  Philosophia  Bo- 
tanies," 99,  157. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  93 

rather  narrow  limits,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  retrace 
antiquity,  we  perceive  that  these  limits  were  the 
same  as  at  the  present.  We  are  thus  obliged  to  ad- 
mit of  certain  forms  which,  since  the  origin  of  things, 
have  been  perpetuated,  without  exceeding  these 
limits;  and  all  the  beings  appertaining  to  one  of  these 
forms  constitute  what  is  termed  a  species.  Genera- 
tion being  the  only  means  of  ascertaining  the  limits 
to  which  varieties  may  extend,  species  should  be 
defined  as  the  reunion  of  individuals  descended  from 
one  another,  or  from  common  parents,  or  from  such 
as  resemble  them  as  closely  as  they  resemble  each 
other;  but  although  this  definition  is  rigorous,  it  will 
be  seen  that  its  application  to  particular  individuals 
may  be  very  different  when  the  necessary  experi- 
ments have  been  made." 

But  not  only,  according  to  Cuvier,  are  existing 
species  fixed  and  the  result  of  special  creative  ac- 
tion ;  the  same  views  must  also  be  held  regarding 
the  countless  geological  species  which  have  so  long 
disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  great 
naturalist  was  a  firm  believer  in  the  doctrine  of  suc- 
cessive creations  and  destructions,  of  a  series  of  de- 
populatings  and  repeoplings  of  the  world.  As  is 
well  known,  he  was  the  author  of  the  celebrated 
Period  or  Concordistic  theory,  which  attempts 
to  reconcile  the  statements  of  the  Mosaic  narra- 
tive of  creation  with  the  declarations  of  geology 
and  paleontology  —  a  theory  which  has  had  a 
great  vogue,  and  which,  after  the  lapse  of  three- 
quarters  of  a  century,  has  even  now  not  a  few  advo- 
cates. 


94  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Definition  of  Species. 

We  come  now  to  the  definition  of  the  term  spe- 
cies, the  critical  point  in  the  controversy  between 
creationists  and  evolutionists.  Aristotle's  concep- 
tion of  species  was,  as  we  have  seen,  far  from  being 
precise.  With  his  followers,  for  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years,  the  idea  of  a  physiological  species  was 
vague  and  nebulous  in  the  extreme.  It  was  usually 
nothing  more  than  a  metaphysical  concept,  and  was 
of  little  or  no  value  to  the  working  naturalist.  In- 
deed, strange  as  it  may  seem,  no  definition  of  the 
term  species,  as  it  is  now  used,  was  given  until  the 
latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  One  of  the 
first  definitions  found  is  in  the  "  Historia  Plantarum  " 
of  the  noted  English  botanist  Ray,  although  Yung,  of 
Hamburg,  and  Tournefort,  the  distinguished  French 
botanist,  contemporaries  of  Ray,  appear  to  have  an- 
ticipated the  English  naturalist  in  arriving  at  a  true 
conception  of  physiological  species.  According  to 
Ray,  "  specific  characters  rested  not  only  on  close 
and  constant  resemblance  in  outward  form,  but  also 
on  the  likeness  of  offspring  to  parent,  a  considerable 
measure  of  variability  being,  however,  recognized." 
Ray's  definition  of  species  and  Linnaeus'  binomial 
system  of  nomenclature,  which  so  greatly  facilitated 
classification,  contributed  immensely  towards  estab- 
lishing order  where  chaos  had  so  long  reigned  su- 
preme. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that, 
after  the  labors  of  Ray,  Linnaeus,  Cuvier,  and  their 
collaborators,  there  was  perfect  unanimity  respect- 


E  VtDBNCBS  OF  B  VOL  UTION.  95 

ing  the  nature  and  signification  of  species.  On 
the  contrary,  the  divergence  of  views  was  rendered 
greater  in  proportion  to  the  progress  of  research  and 
discovery,  so  that  it  soon  became  difficult  to  find 
any  two  persons  who  could  agree  on  a  definition  of 
the  term  "  species." 

Everyone  who  wrote  on  zoology,  as  we  have 
learned,  had  his  own  system  of  classification.  In 
like  manner,  everyone  who  had  occasion  to  treat  of 
questions  of  natural  history  found  himself  compelled 
to  define  the  little  word  "  species,"  and  the  defini- 
tion given  usually  differed  in  important  respects 
from  those  of  previous  investigators.  Indeed,  if 
we  compare  the  definitions  of  species  which  have 
been  given  since  the  time  of  Ray,  we  shall  find  that 
there  has  been  as  great  a  change  of  opinion  respecting 
its  nature,  as  there  has  been  displayed  in  the  various 
systems  of  classification  that  have  been  elaborated 
since  the  period  of  Linnaeus.  Everywhere  there  is 
uncertainty,  doubt,  nebulosity. 

The  learned  anthropologist,  De  Quatrefages,  in 
his  interesting  work,  "  Darwin  et  ses  Precurseurs 
Franqais,"  gives,  besides  his  own  definition  of  the 
term,  no  fewer  than  twenty  definitions  of  species — 
he  might  have  given  many  more — as  proposed  by  as 
many  eminent  naturalists.'  Some,  like  Ray  and  Flou- 
rens,  base  their  definition  on  genealogical  connection  ; 
others  like  Tournefort  and  De  CandoUe  regard  like- 
ness among  individuals  as  the  essential  thing  in  a  true 
definition  of  species,  while  others  still,  and  these  for 

'Pp.  i86, 187. 


96  E  VOL  U  TION  A ND  DOGMA . 

the  nonce  are  in  the  majority,  aver  that  both  filia- 
tion and  resemblance  must  be  taken  into  account  in 
any  true  definition  of  the  term. 

Thus,  the  illustrious  botanist  Antoine  Laurent  de 
Jussieu,  the  founder  of  the  "natural  system"  of 
botany,  which  superseded  the  artificial  or  sexual 
system  of  Linnaeus,  defines  species  as  "  a  succession 
of  individuals  entirely  alike,  which  are  perpetuated 
by  generation."  *  Similar  definitions  have  been 
given  by  Lamarck,  Cuvier,  Johann  Miiller,  Isidore 
Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire  and  others.  According  to  De 
Quatrefages  a  "  species  is  a  collection  of  individuals, 
more  or  less  resembling  each  other,  which  may  be 
regarded  as  having  descended  from  a  single  primi- 
tive pair  by  an  uninterrupted  and  natural  succession 
of  families.""  Agassiz,  however,  who,  as  we  have 
seen,  contended  that  individuals  of  the  same  species 
existing  in  disconnected  geographical  areas  had  in- 
dependent origins,  insisted  that  we  are  forced  "to 
remove  from  the  philosophic  definition  of  species 
the  idea  of  a  community  of  origin,  and  consequently, 
also,  the  idea  of  a  necessary  genealogical  connec- 
tion.'" 

To  the  foregoing  I  may  add  the  declarations  of 
our  eminent  American  botanist.  Professor  Asa  Gray, 
who  declares :  "  We  still  hold  that  genealogical  con- 
nection, rather  than  mutual  resemblance,  is  the  fun- 


'  In  his  great  work,  ''  Genera  Plantarum,"  Jussieu  savs  of 
species:  "  Nunc  rectius  definitur  perennis  individuorum  similium 
successio  continuata  generatione  renascentium." 

'"The  Human  Species,"  p.  36. 

*  "  Essay  on  Classification,"  p.  256. 


E  VIDENCES  OF  E  VOL  UTION.  97 

damental  thing — first  on  the  ground  of  fact,  and 
then  from  the  philosophy  of  the  case.  Practically, 
no  botanist  can  say  what  amount  of  dissimilarity  is 
compatible  with  the  unity  of  species ;  in  wild  plants 
it  is  sometimes  very  great,  in  cultivated  races  often 
enormous."'  What  the  learned  professor  here  af- 
firms of  plants,  may  likewise,  with  equal  truth,  be 
predicated  of  animals  both  wild  and  domestic. 

Difficulties  Regarding  Species. 

What,  then,  is  species?  Is  it  something  real,  as 
some  have  averred,  or  is  it,  as  others  maintain,  some- 
thing which  is  only  ideal?  And  if  it  have  an  exist- 
ence, real  or  ideal,  how  may  it  be  recognized?  The 
definitions  given  do  not,  as  we  have  seen,  throw 
much  light  on  the  subject.  On  the  contrary,  they 
are  all  more  or  less  defective,  and  often  quite  con- 
tradictory. 

It  is  only,  however,  when  we  come  to  consider 
the  practical  applications  of  these  or  similar  defini- 
tions, that  we  find  how  illusory  and  unsatisfactory 
they  are.  We  have  but  to  compare  the  classifica- 
tions of  different  botanists  and  zoologists  when 
treating  of  the  same  florse  and  faunae,  to  realize  how 
utterly  inadequate  are  even  the  best  definitions  of 
species  as  guides  in  the  classificatory  work  of  prac- 
tical naturalists.  No  two  naturalists,  it  may  safely 
be  asserted,  have  ever  yet  agreed  on  the  same  clas- 
sification as  to  species,  even  for  the  animals  and 
plants  of  restricted  geographical  areas.     Some  aug- 

^  "  Darwiniana,"  p.  203. 

E.-7 


98  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

ment  the  number  of  species;  others  diminish  it. 
Some  make  species  out  of  what  others  regard  as 
only  races  or  varieties  ;  whilst  others  again  combine 
in  one  what  still  others  contend  are  demonstrably 
two  or  more  distinct  species. 

Thus,  we  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Gray  that 
*'  In  a  flora  so  small  as  the  British,  one  hundred  and 
eighty-two  plants,  generally  reckoned  as  varieties, 
have  been  ranked  by  some  botanists  as  species. 
Selecting  the  British  genera  which  include  the  most 
polymorphous  forms,  it  appears  that  Babbington's 
flora  gives  them  two  hundred  and  fifty-one  species, 
Bentham's  only  one  hundred  and  twelve ;  a  differ- 
ence of  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  doubtful  forms. 
These  are  nearly  the  extreme  views,  but  they  are 
the  views  of  two  most  capable  and  most  experienced 
judges  in  respect  to  one  of  the  best-known  floras  of 
the  world.  The  fact  is  suggestive,  that  the  best- 
known  countries  furnish  the  greatest  known  number 
of  such  doubtful  cases."  ' 

The  relativity  and  variability  of  species  are  still 
more  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  case  of  the  hawk- 
weed,  hieracium,  of  Germany.  One  author  de- 
scribes no  fewer  than  three  hundred  species  of  this 
plant,  another  makes  the  number  one  hundred  and 
six,  a  third  reduces  it  to  fifty-two,  while  a  fourth  is 
equally  positive  that  there  are  but  twenty  species 
all  told!" 


*  "Darwiniana,"  p.  35.    Cf .  "The  Origin  of  Species,"  chap,  11. 

*  It  was  such  difficulties  of  classification  that  led  the  natu- 
ralist, Deslonchamps,  to  declare  :  "  Plus  on  voit  d'echantillons, 
moins  on  fait  d'especes."  For  a  similar  reason  Darwin  ex- 
claims: "How  painfully  true  it  is  that  no   one   has  a   right  to 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  99 

Haeckel's  well-known  monograph  on  the  calca- 
reous sponges  shows,  even  in  a  more  remarkable 
manner,  to  what  an  extent  classification  depends  on 
the  personal  equation  of  the  systematist,  or  *'  on  his 
predilection  for  lumping  and  splitting."  In  this 
monograph  the  Jena  professor,  considering  the  same 
set  of  forms  from  different  points  of  view,  offers  no 
fewer  than  twelve  different  arrangements,  "  among 
which  the  two  most  nearly  conventional  propose 
respectively  twenty-one  genera  and  one  hundred 
and  eleven  species,  and  thirty-nine  genera  and  two 
hundred  and  eighty-nine  species." 

Similar,  although  less  marked  instances  of  spe- 
cific indefiniteness  are  exhibited  regarding  the  oak, 
willow,  beech,  birch,  chestnut,  and  other  well-known 
trees.  It  is,  however,  in  the  lowest  forms  of  life 
that  it  is  most  difficult  to  draw  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  one  species  and  another,  and  where, 
as  all  admit,  the  grouping  of  species  into  genera  is  at 
best  a  matter  of  conjecture.  The  countless  and  com- 
plete series  of  transitional  forms  brought  up  from  the 
ocean  depths  by  the  dredge  and  trawl  are  cases  in 
point. 

But  more  puzzling  still  to  the  systematist,  are 
those  extraordinary  microbian  forms  of  life  called 
schisoniycetes,  which  embrace  the  numerous  micro- 
scopic   organisms     known    as    microbes,    bacteria. 


examine  the  question  of  species  who  has  not  minutelj  described 
many.  .  .  .  After  determining  a  set  of  forms  as  a  distinct 
species,  tearing  them  up  and  making  them  separate,  and  then 
making  them  one  again  (which  has  happened  to  me),  I  have 
gnashed  my  teeth,  cursed  species,  and  asked  what  sin  I  had 
committed  to  be  so  treated." 


100  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA . 

microphytes,  and  their  congeners.  Here  classifica- 
tion is  at  best  provisional  and  arbitrary,  and  depends 
entirely  on  the  point  of  view  from  which  they  are 
studied.  In  such  lowly  forms  of  life,  not  only  is  the 
certain  discrimination  of  species  impossible,  but  it  is 
impossible  even  to  draw  a  hard  and  fast  line  between 
what  is  incontestably  animal  life  on  the  one  hand, 
and  vegetable  life  on  the  other. 

Such  being  the  case,  what,  it  may  be  asked,  be- 
comes of  species  ?  What  of  classification  ?  What  of 
the  various  systems  which  have  been  proposed  ? 
Have  species  any  real  existence,  the  question  is 
again  asked,  or  are  they  but  mere  figments  of  the 
imagination,  ignes  fatui,  which  have  ever  eluded  the 
grasp  of  the  investigator,  and  which  are  now  even 
farther  away  from  it  than  they  ever  were  before? 
Are  they  but  varying,  metaphysical  entities,  airy 
nothings,  convenient  only  for  purposes  of  specula- 
tion and  for  a  classification  which,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  must  at  best  be  but  provisional 
and  arbitrary  ? 

In  reply  to  these  questions  it  may  be  stated  that 
there  are  still  those,  and  their  number  is  far  from 
being  small,  who  yet  cling  to  the  old  idea  of  species 
as  something  real,  immutable,  and  always  recogniza- 
ble. The  instances  I  have  just  alluded  to  may  not 
indeed,  it  is  conceded,  exhibit  all  the  specific  definite- 
ness  of  the  Venus'  flytrap,  or  the  pearly  nautilus, 
but  nevertheless,  it  is  contended,  the  species  exist, 
despite  the  difficulties  which  obscure  their  definition, 
or  which,  for  the  time  being,  make  their  recognition 
impossible. 


E  VIDENCES  OF  E  VOL  UTION.  101 


Agassiz'  Views. 

Yet  even  in  the  face  of  the  difficulties  which  have 
been  referred  to,  Agassiz  persisted,  as  others  still 
persist,  in  maintaining  that  species  are  entities,  real 
or  ideal,  which  continue  to  exist  from  generation  to 
generation.  But  he  went  further  than  this,  further 
even  than  most  of  his  predecessors  had  been  willing 
to  go.  For  not  only,  according  to  his  views,  are 
species  unchangeable  units,  but  genera,  orders, 
classes,  and  the  other  groups  as  well,  "are  founded 
in  nature,  and  ought  not  to  be  considered  as  arti- 
ficial devices,  invented  by  man  to  facilitate  his 
studies."  "To  me,"  says  Agassiz,  "it  appears  in- 
disputable, that  the  order  and  arrangement  of  our 
studies  are  based  on  the  natural,  primitive  relations 
of  animal  life — those  systems  to  which  we  have 
given  the  names  of  the  great  leaders  of  our  science 
who  first  proposed  them,  being,  in  truth,  but  trans- 
lations into  human  language  of  the  thoughts  of  the 
Creator."  In  the  opinion  of  the  illustrious  Swiss 
savant,  "  man  has  not  invented,  but  only  traced,  the 
systematic  arrangement  of  nature."  "  The  relations 
and  proportions  which  exist  throughout  the  animal 
and  vegetable  world,  have  an  intellectual,  an  ideal 
connection  in  the  mind  of  the  Creator.  The  plan  of 
creation,  which  so  commends  itself  to  our  highest 
wisdom,  has  not  grown  out  of  the  necessary  action 
of  physical  laws,  but  was  the  free  conception  of  the 
Almighty  intellect,  matured  in  His  thought  before 
it  was  manifested  in  tangible,  external  forms."     "  In 


102  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

a  word,    species,    genera,    families,    etc.,    exist   as 
thoughts ;  individuals  as  facts."  * 

Species  in  the  Making. 

But  while  some  of  the  old  school  who  are  not 
naturalists,  still  subscribe  to  these  or  similar  views, 
and  while  a  few,  possibly  even  among  naturalists, 
may  yet  be  found  who  entertain  like  notions,  the 
great  majority  of  working  naturalists  have  entirely 
discarded  the  traditional  idea  of  species,  as  some- 
thing fixed  and  unchangeable,  and  substituted  in 
its  stead  the  idea  of  a  species  which  is  variable  and 
transmutable.  For  evolutionists,  all  such  variable 
and  doubtful  forms  as  those  I  have  indicated  are  but 
"  species  in  the  making,"  which  become  definite  in 
proportion  as  certain  varieties  become  especially 
adapted  to  their  environment,  and  become  isolated 
by  the  dying  out  of  the  intermediate  forms.  From 
the  evolutionary  standpoint  both  species  and  classi- 
fication have  a  significance  which  is  not  only  ex- 
cluded from  the  creationist's  view,  but  which  is 
absolutely  incompatible  with  it.  By  the  aid  of  the 
Evolution  hypothesis,  too,  mysteries  are  solved  which 


^  Cf.  "  Essay  on  Classification,"  chap,  i ,  sec.  i ,  and  "Amer- 
ican Journal  of  Science,"  July,  i860,  p.  143.  Very  few  naturalists, 
even  among  Agassiz'  predecessors,  among  those,  namely,  who 
like  himself,  were  from  conviction  special  creationists,  would,  I 
think,  subscribe  to  this  statement.  The  majority  of  them,  I  am 
disposed  to  believe,  regarded  all  divisions  above  species  as  purely 
conventional.  For,  even  in  pre-Darwinian  days,  as  Romanes 
well  observes,  "the  scientifically  orthodox  doctrine  was,  that 
although  species  were  to  be  regarded  as  fixed  units,  bearing  the 
stamp  of  a  special  creation,  all  the  higher  taxonomic  divisions 
•were  to  be  considered  as  what  may  be  termed  the  artificial  cre- 
ation of  naturalists  themselves." — "  Darwin  and  After  Darwin," 
vol.  I,  p.  20. 


E  VI DEN  CBS  OF  EV  OL  U  TION.  103 

had  long  baffled  the  efforts  of  the  keenest  investi- 
gators of  the  old  school,  and  a  simple  explanation 
is  afforded  of  difficulties  and  apparent  anomalies 
which,  without  this  hypothesis,  are  simply  inexpli- 
cable. A  few  simple  examples  will  illustrate  my 
meaning,  and  at  the  same  time  indicate  the  nature  of 
one  of  the  arguments  adduced  in  favor  of  organic 
Evolution. 

De  Candolle  and  Baird. 

The  eminent  Swiss  botanist,  M.  Alphonse  de 
Candolle,  as  the  result  of  an  exhaustive  study  under 
particularly  favorable  circumstances,  of  the  oak,  es- 
pecially the  oak  of  the  Old  World,  comes  to  the  con- 
clusion that  current  notions  regarding  this  important 
genus  must  be  materially  modified  ;  that  far  from 
having  the  large  number  of  species  usually  attrib- 
uted to  it,  the  number  is  in  reality  very  small;  that 
what  are  so  frequently  considered  as  species,  are  at 
best  but  varieties  and  races ;  that  there  is  every  rea- 
son to  believe,  if  indeed  there  is  not  positive  proof, 
that  all  the  multitudinous  gradations  observed  among 
oaks  are  originally  derived  from  but  a  few  forms,  or 
that  all  of  them  may  be  traced  back  to  the  same  pri- 
meval ancestor.  His  investigations  regarding  the  oak, 
demonstrate  beyond  question  what  other  naturalists 
had  observed  and  suspected,  viz :  that  what  appears 
to  be  a  distinct  species,  when  only  a  few  specimens 
from  a  limited  area  are  examined,  proves  on  the  ex- 
amination of  a  larger  number  of  specimens,  from  a 
wider  geographical  area,  to  be,  at  most,  but  a  race 
or  a  variety. 


104  EVOLUTION  A ND  D OGMA . 

Considering  the  relations  to  each  other  of  only 
existing  species,  De  Candolle  felt  obliged  to  curtail 
greatly  the  number  of  species  of  the  genus  quercus, 
but  when  the  genealogy  of  the  oak  is  studied  in  the 
light  of  geology  and  paleontology,  it  is  found  that  it 
originated  far  back  in  the  Cretaceous  Period,  and 
that  this  ancient  geologic  form  is  undoubtedly  the 
common  ancestor  of  all  the  species  and  varieties  now 
existing.  For  we  have  it  on  the  testimony  of  such 
a  competent  witness  as  Lesquereux,  that  not  only 
the  oak  but  all  "  the  essential  types  of  our  actual 
flora  are  marked  in  the  Cretaceous  Period,  and  have 
come  to  us,  after  passing  without  notable  changes 
through  the  Tertiary  formations  of  our  conti- 
nent." 

Baird's  researches  upon  the  birds  of  North  Amer- 
ica, admirably  corroborate  De  Candolle's  induction, 
to  wit:  "That  when  a  large  number  of  specimens 
from  a  sufficiently  extensive  territory  are  examined 
and  compared,  it  is  found  that  what  are  ordinarily 
regarded  as  quite  distinct  species  are  often  no  more 
than  races  and  varieties,  or  what  evolutionists  would 
denominate  incipient  species.  For  along  the  border- 
ing lines  of  the  habitats  of  such  species,  it  is  observed 
that  the  specific  characters  of  the  divers  forms  are  so 
blended  that  it  is  often  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to 
distinguish  one  species  from  another.  Indeed, 
whether  the  birds  observed  in  such  cases  belong  to 
the  same  or  to  different  species  will  depend,  mainly 
or  entirely,  either  on  the  naturalist's  point  of  view, 
or  on  the  number  of  intermediate  forms  which  he 
may  be  able  to  collect  and  compare." 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  105 


Evidence  of  Organic  Evolution. 

After  this  long  preamble  respecting  classification 
and  species — a  preamble  which  the  nature  and  scope 
of  the  topic  now  under  discussion  have  rendered 
necessary — we  are  at  length  prepared  for  an  intelli- 
gent appreciation  of  the  arguments  commonly  ad- 
duced in  support  of  the  theory  of  organic  Evolution. 
If  species  are  not  the  immutable  units  they  have  so 
long  been  considered  ;  if,  far  from  being  easy  of  rec- 
ognition, as  is  so  often  fancied,  they  are  with  diffi- 
culty recognizable,  if  at  all ;  if,  far  from  being  perma- 
nent and  unchangeable,  they  are,  on  the  contrary, 
variable  and  mutable ;  we  have  legitimate  a  priori 
reasons  for  believing  in  the  possibility  of  Evolution, 
if  not  in  its  probability.  The  actuality,  however, 
of  Evolution,  is  a  question  of  evidence  ;  not  indeed  of 
evidence  based  on  metaphysical  assumptions,  but  of 
evidence  derived  from  observation  and  a  trustworthy 
interpretation  of  the  facts  of  nature.  To  the  discus- 
sion of  this  evidence,  which  I  shall  make  as  brief  as 
is  consistent  with  clearness  and  the  nature  of  the 
argument  involved,  I  shall  now  direct  the  reader's 
attention. 

The  evidence  usually  advanced  in  support  of 
organic  Evolution  is  fourfold,  and  is  based:  First, 
on  the  classification  of  animals  and  plants ;  second, 
on  their  morphology ;  third,  on  their  embryology ; 
and  fourth,  on  their  distribution  in  space  and 
time.  This,  especially  the  evidence  derived  from 
paleontology,  is   what    Huxley  designates  as  "the 


106  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

demonstrative  evidence  of  Evolution,"  and   is  well 
worthy  of  our  most  serious  consideration. 

Of  course  it  will  be  understood  that  I  can  give 
only  the  baldest  outline  of  the  arguments  ad- 
vanced in  favor  of  the  theory  of  Evolution  as  applied 
to  plants  and  animals.  Space  precludes  my  doing 
more  than  this  ;  besides  it  is  unnecessary,  as  count- 
less treatises  by  specialists  have  been  written,  in 
which  the  various  arguments  in  favor  of  Evolution 
are  given  in  extenso,  and  to  these  is  referred  the 
reader  who  is  desirous  of  more  detailed  information. 

The  argument  from  classification  has  been  inci- 
dentally touched  upon  in  what  precedes.  We  have 
noted  the  differences  of  views  entertained  by  divers 
naturalists  respecting  the  classification  of  certain 
plants  and  animals,  and  how  difficulties  of  classifica- 
tion increase  as  we  descend  from  higher  to  lower 
types  of  animated  nature.  On  the  theory  that  all 
the  manifold  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  are 
descended  from  one  primitive  form,  these  difficul- 
ties, which  on  the  special  creation  theory  are  simply 
inexplicable,  find  a  ready  and  simple  explanation. 
Assuming  that  all  forms  of  life  are  originally  de- 
rived from  simple  monera  or  undifferentiated  parti- 
cles of  protoplasm,  and  that  all  are  but  more  or  less 
modified  descendants  of  the  same  humble  ancestor, 
we  can  understand  why  there  are  such  striking  re- 
semblances in  some  instances,  and  such  wide  diver- 
gencies in  others. 

A  Philological  Illustration. 

An  illustration  taken  from  philology  will  make 
this  statement  clearer.     In  the  Romance  languages, 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  107 

for  instance,  we  observe  many  marked  similarities  of 
form  and  structure,  but  no  one  would  think  of  assert- 
ing that  all  these  different  tongues  are  directly  due 
to  Divine  intervention,  or  that  Spanish  is  derived 
from  Italian,  or  Italian  from  French.  And  yet,  they 
are  genetically  related  to  one  another,  because  we 
know  that  they  are  all  derived  from  an  older  speech 
— the  Latin.  In  like  manner  we  are  able  to  trace 
relationships  between  the  numerous  members  of  the 
great  Aryan  family  of  languages — between,  for  ex- 
ample, such  widely  dissimilar  tongues  as  Sanscrit, 
Latin,  Greek,  Slavic,  Zend,  Gothic,  German,  Irish. 
We  cannot,  of  course,  arrange  them  in  a  linear 
series,  but  it  can  be  shown  that  all  of  them  are  de- 
scended from  the  same  mother-tongue  and  that  they 
all,  therefore,  belong  to  the  same  family  tree. 

Tree- Like  System  of  Classification. 

As  in  philology,  so  also  in  botany  and  zoology, 
we  must  look  upon  the  whole  of  animated  nature  as 
constituting  but  a  single  genealogical  tree.  The 
trunk  of  this  tree  represents  those  lower  forms  of  life 
which  cannot  be  said  with  certainty  to  be  either 
animal  or  vegetable.  It  first  bifurcates  into  two 
minor  trunks,  or  large  branches,  which  are  known  as 
the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms.  Each  of  these 
trunks  or  branches  bears  other  branches  which  de- 
note classes,  and  these,  in  turn,  ramify  in  such  wise  as 
to  produce  boughs,  twigs,  twiglets,  and  leaves,  repre- 
senting families,  orders,  genera,  and  species. 

This  tree-like  system  of  classification  of  animals 
and  plants  obtained  long  before  the  time  of  Darwin, 


108  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA . 

but  he  gave  it  a  significance  it  never  before  pos- 
sessed. He  showed  that  it  was  in  reality  the  only 
natural  system,  and  the  only  one  which  was  compe- 
tent to  explain  the  varied  and  complicated  facts  of 
the  organic  world.  He  demonstrated  more  clearly 
than  had  any  of  his  predecessors  the  impossibility  of 
attempting,  as  had  Lamarck  and  others,  to  arrange 
animals  and  plants  in  a  series  of  linear  groups.  By 
classifying  animals  in  lineally  ascending  groups, 
Lamarck  had  placed  snails  and  oysters  above  such 
marvelously  organized  creatures  as  bees  and  butter- 
flies. The  same  system  of  classification  would  place 
the  humble  duck-bill,  because  it  is  a  mammal,  above 
the  eagle  and  the  condor,  the  lowly  amphioxus 
above  the  crab,  and  the  degraded  lepidosiren  above 
the  salmon. 

Again,  the  tree-like  system  of  classification  eludes 
such  blunders  and  shows  that  differences  of  structure, 
and  not  complexity  of  organization,  are  to  be  con- 
sidered in  every  rational  attempt  to  ascertain  the 
true  position  of  any  organism  in  the  animal  king- 
dom. Unlike  all  popular  classifications,  it  is  not 
based  on  mere  external  resemblances,  but  on  resem- 
blances which  are  deeper  and  more  fundamental. 
Thus,  for  instance,  a  whale  is  often  regarded  as  a 
fish,  because,  forsooth,  it  bears  some  likeness  to  a 
fish  in  form  and  habits.  A  closer  examination,  how- 
ever, reveals  the  fact  that  it  is  more  like  a  dog  or  an 
ox  than  a  fish.  The  same  may  be  said  of  other 
cases  that  might  be  cited,  wherein  the  true  position 
of  an  organism  in  the  scale  of  life  can  be  determined, 
not  by  superficial  resemblances,  but   by  likenesses 


E  VIDBNCES  OF  E  VOL  UTION.  109 

which  are  revealed  only  by  dissection — likenesses 
which  can  be  fully  appreciated  only  by  the  trained 
anatomist. 

The  more  closely,  then,  one  examines  the  divers 
forms  of  life,  the  stronger  grows  the  conviction  that 
they  are  genetically  related  in  the  manner  indicated 
by  a  Stammbaum,  or  genealogical  tree.  No  other 
system  is  competent  to  explain  the  facts  observed ; 
neither  is  there  any  other  system  which  can  explain 
the  "  progressive  shading  off  of  characters  common 
to  larger  groups  into  more  and  more  specialized 
characters  distinctive  only  of  smaller  and  smaller 
groups."  It  is  just  such  a  system  as  we  should  ex- 
pect to  find  if  the  theory  of  descent  be  true  ;  just 
such  a  system  as  would  obtain  if  the  law  of  parsi- 
mony be  admitted,  the  law,  to-wit,  that  "  forbids  us 
to  assume  the  operation  of  higher  causes  when  lower 
ones  are  found  sufficient  to  explain  the  observed 
effects."  Indeed,  so  powerful  does  the  argument  from 
classification  appear  to  some  minds,  that  it  alone  is 
regarded  as  decisive  in  favor  of  Evolution.  Referring 
to  this  matter  Mr.  Fiske  declares:  "  In  my  own  case 
the  facts  presented  in  Agassiz*  '  Essay  on  Classifica- 
tion '  went  far  toward  producing  conviction  before 
the  publication  of  Mr.  Darwin's  work  on  the  '  Origin 
of  Species,'  where  the  significance  of  such  facts  is 
clearly  pointed  out  and  strongly  insisted  upon." ' 

The  Argument  from  Structure  and  Morphology. 

We  now  pass  to  the  argument  from  structure 
and  morphology.     To  confine  ourselves  to  the  ver- 


1"  Cosmic  Philosophy,"  vol.  I,  p.  454. 


110  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

tebrates,  which  are  more  famih'ar  to  the  general 
reader,  we  observe  that  all  the  members  of  this  ex- 
tensive group  are  constructed  on  the  same  general 
type.  They  belong,  as  it  were,  to  the  same  style  of 
architecture,  and  we  can  trace  the  variations  of 
structure  of  similar  parts  with  ease  and  precision. 
They  are  all  descendants  of  but  one  archetypal 
form,  of  one  primal  vertebrate,  from  which  all 
others  are  derived  by  adaptive  modification.  This 
is  beautifully  illustrated  in  the  homologies  of  the 
vertebrate  skeleton. 

And  here  it  is  necessary  to  remark  that  analo- 
gous organs  are  by  no  means  homologous  organs. 
Analogous  organs  are  those  wHIcTi  are  sTiiinar  in 
form  and  function,  but  of  different  origin.  Homol- 
ogous organs,  on  the  contrary,  are  those  which, 
however  different  their  form  and  functions,  can  be 
shown  to  have  community  of  origin.  Thus,  the 
wings  of  birds  and  butterflies  are  analogous,  but 
not  homologous.  They  have  the  same  general 
form  and  function,  but  they  have  not  the  same 
origin  ;  that  is,  they  have  not  been  produced  by 
modification  from  the  same  organ  or  part.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  arms  of  men  and  apes,  the  fore-legs 
and  fore-paws  of  mammals  and  reptiles,  the  wings  of 
bats  and  birds,  and  the  paddles  of  cetacea  and  the 
breast-fins  of  fishes  are  homologous,  because,  how- 
ever diverse  their  forms  and  functions,  they  can  all 
be  demonstrated  to  have  a  common  origin.  They 
have  essentially  the  same  structure  and  are  com- 
posed of  the  same  pieces,  although  in  view  of  their 
diverse   functions   they   are   so   modified    that   the 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  Ill 

superficial  resemblance  has  entirely  disappeared. 
But  although  the  modifications  are  so  great,  they 
are,  nevertheless,  just  such  modifications  as  would 
have  originated  from  the  fore-limb  of  some  arche- 
typal form,  if  this  limb  had  been  called  upon  to 
perform  entirely  different  functions  from  those  for 
which  it  was  first  adapted,  or  if  the  archetypal  an- 
cestor had  been  introduced  to  an  entirely  different 
environment  from  the  one  in  which  it  was  originally 
placed.  Analogy,  then,  is  but  a  superficial  resem- 
blance, whereas,  homology  is  an  essential  and  fun- 
damental one  which,  in  many  cases,  can  be  detected 
only  by  experts  in  comparative  anatomy. 

Now,  it  is  precisely  the  fact  of  homology  of 
structure,  which  finds  its  sole  explanation  in  com- 
munity of  origin,  that  constitutes  one  of  the  strong- 
est proofs  of  the  theory  of  Evolution. 

According  to  the  evolutionary  theory  of  natural 
selection,  it  is  inferred  that  hereditary  characters 
undergo  a  change  whenever  a  change  will  better 
adapt  an  organism  to  changed  conditions  of  life. 
The  whale  is  again  a  case  in  point.  From  the  best 
evidence  obtainable,  it  is  concluded  that  the  ances- 
tors of  whales  were  land  quadrupeds,  which  became 
aquatic  in  their  habits.  But  such  a  change  in  their 
mode  of  life  would  necessitate  a  corresponding 
change  in  the  functions  of  various  parts  and  organs. 
The  hind-legs  would  not  be  required  for  purposes 
of  locomotion,  and  hence  they  would  disappear. 
The  fore-legs  would  be  adapted  for  swimming,  and 
would,  therefore,  be  transformed  into  fins  or  pad- 
dles.    There  would   also  be  important   changes  in 


112  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  skin,  teeth,  muscles  and  form  of  the  organism, 
rendering  it  more  fish-like  in  shape,  and  better 
adapted  for  moving  in  the  water. 

But  even  with  all  these  modifications,  necessi- 
tated by  changes  of  environment  and  consequent 
mode  of  life,  the  anatomist  would  experience  no 
difficulty  in  demonstrating  that  the  whale  is  not  a 
fish,  but  a  mammal,  and  in  exhibiting  the  various 
homologies  existing  between  the  divers  parts  of  this 
monster  of  the  deep,  as  we  now  know  it,  and  parts 
of  its  hypothetical  terrestrial  progenitor.  Thus,  the 
paddles,  as  we  have  seen,  correspond  to  the  arms 
of  man,  the  fore-legs  of  quadrupeds,  the  flippers  of 
turtles,  and  the  wings  of  birds.  The  hind-legs  are 
not  visible,  externally,  it  is  true,  but  they  exist  in- 
ternally in  a  rudimentary  state.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  teeth.  The  fully-developed  baleen  whale, 
for  instance,  has  no  teeth,  for  it  has  no  need  of 
them,  but  in  its  embryotic  condition  it  possesses  a 
complete  rudimentary  set  of  teeth,  which  are  never 
cut,  but  are  absorbed  during  the  embryonic  life  of 
the  organism.  Similarly,  the  bones  of  the  head  of 
the  whale  are  exactly  homologous  with  those  of  the 
mammal,  although  the  better  to  adapt  it  for  aquatic 
locomotion,  the  shape  of  the  head  more  closely  re- 
sembles the  head  of  a  fish.  But  great  and  numer- 
ous as  are  the  modifications  observed,  they  have  all 
been  effected  with  the  least  possible  divergence  from 
the  ancestral  type  which  is  compatible  with  the 
changed  conditions  of  life.  In  form  and  in  the 
functions  of  certain  of  its  parts,  the  whale  is  a  fish; 
in  type  and  structure  it  is  a  mammal — a  lineal  de- 


I 


E  VIDBNCBS  OF  EV  OL  U  TION.  113 

scendant,  according  to  the  Evolution  theory,  of  some 
mammoth  terrestrial  quadruped  of  which  no  trace 
has  as  yet  been  discovered. 

Rudimentary  Organs. 

It  were  easy  to  multiply  indefinitely  examples 
of  such  rudimentary  organs  as  those  exhibited  by 
the  cetacea.  We  see  them  in  the  tails  of  birds,  in 
the  gill-arches  of  reptiles,  in  the  dew-claws  of  a  dog's 
foot,  in  the  splint-bones  of  the  horse,  and  in  the 
wings  of  the  ostrich  and  apteryx.  Indeed,  there  is 
not  a  single  representative  of  the  higher  forms  of 
animal  life,  which  does  not  exhibit  one  or  more 
parts  in  an  atrophied  or  rudimentary  condition. 

But  what  is  the  significance  of  such  aborted  and 
useless  organs?  What  is  their  origin,  and  can  any 
reason  be  assigned  for  the  existence  of  such  func- 
tionless  parts?  The  only  natural  explanation  which 
can  be  offered,  the  only  rational  solution  of  the 
difficulty  which  science  can  give,  is  that  suggested  by 
the  theory  of  Evolution.  According  to  the  theory 
of  descent  with  adaptive  modification,  rudimentary 
organs  are  remnants  of  "  some  generalized  primal 
form,"  in  which  they  were  useful,  and  had  a  definite 
function  to  perform.  By  reason  of  changed  condi- 
tions of  life  of  the  individual,  and  corresponding  dis- 
use of  certain  parts,  great  modifications  in  size  and 
form  and  function  ensued,  and  thus  what  was  useful 
and  necessary  in  the  ancestral  form  ceased  to  be  of 
value  in  its  successor. 

"  Rudimentary  organs,"  then,  to  quote  from  Dar- 
win,  "  by   whatever    steps  they    may    have    been 


114  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

degraded  into  their  present  useless  condition, 
are  the  record  of  a  former  state  of  things  and  have 
been  retained  solely  through  the  power  of  inherit- 
ance. They  may  be  compared  with  the  letters  in  a 
word  still  retained  in  the  spelling,  but  become  use- 
less in  pronunciation,  but  which  serve  as  a  clue  for 
its  derivation.  On  the  view  of  descent  with  modifi- 
cation, we  may  conclude  that  the  existence  of 
organs  in  a  rudimentary,  imperfect  and  useless  con- 
dition, or  quite  aborted,  far  from  presenting  a 
strange  diflficulty,  as  they  assuredly  do  on  the  old 
doctrine  of  creation,  might  even  have  been  antici- 
pated in  accordance  with  the  views  here  ex- 
plained." ' 

Considering,  then,  these  wonderful  homologies, 
of  which  but  brief  mention  has  been  made,  and  pon- 
dering over  the  problems  raised  by  the  existence  of 
rudimentary  or  vestigial  organs,  in  such  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  animal  kingdom,  what  inference  are  we 
to  draw  from  the  point  of  view  of  science  ?  "  What 
now,"  demands  Spencer,  "  can  be  the  meaning  of 
this  community  of  structure  among  these  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  species  filling  the  air,  burrowing  in 
the  earth,  swimming  in  the  water,  creeping  among 
the  sea-weed,  and  having  such  enormous  differences 
of  size,  outline  and  substance,  that  no  community 
would  be  suspected  between  them  ?  Why,  under 
the  down-covered  body  of  the  moth,  and  under  the 
hard  wing-cases  of  the  beetle,  should  there  be  discov- 
ered the  same  number  of  divisions  as  in  the  calcare- 


The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  II,  p.  263. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  115 

ous  framework  of  the  lobster  ?" '  But  two  answers 
have  been  given  or  can  be  given  — the  answer  of  the 
special  creationist,"  that  all  forms  of  life  were  cre- 
ated as  we  find  them,  and  the  answer  of  the 
evolutionist,  who  contends  that  community  of  struc- 
ture betokens  community  of  origin. 

Argument  from  Embryology. 

The  argument  from  embryology  is  next  in  order, 
but  it  is  of  such  a  character  that  its  full  import  can 
be  appreciated  only  by  experts  in  the  science  on 
which  it  is  based.  The  most  remarkable  character- 
istic of  the  argument  is  that  we  find  in  the  life- 
history  of  the  individual,  ontogeny,  an  epitome  of 
its  ancestral  history,  phylogeny.  And  this  charac- 
teristic is  not  only  in  complete  accordance  with  the 
theory  of  organic  Evolution,  but  is,  moreover,  just 
what  we  should  expect  if  the  theory  be  true. 

The  great  embryologist,  Von  Baer,  was  the 
first  to  call  attention  to  the  remarkable  agreement 


*  "  Principles  of  Biology,"  vol.  I,  p.  381. 

*  Replying  to  the  argument  that  rudimentary  organs  were 
specially  created  by  God  in  order  to  complete  the  symmetry 
and  harmony  of  the  organism,  Dr.  Maisonneuve  observes:  "II 
me  semble  etrange  que  I'on  soit  oblige  d'en  venir  a  preter  a 
Dieu  I'idee  de  faire  des  trompe-l'ceil  —  passez-moi  I'expres- 
sion — et  de  supposer  que  I'Auteur  de  toutes  choses  a  si  mal  pris 
ses  mesures,  qu'il  a  ete  oblige  d'en  venir  a  proceder  comme  un 
architecte,  dont  les  plans  mal  con5us  ne  lui  permettent  plus  de 
ne  placer  des  fenetres  ou  des  lucarnes  que  seulment  la  ou 
leur  existence  se  trouve  justifiee  a  tous  points  de  vue.  Car,  vous 
reconnaitrez  sans  peine,  j'imagine,  que  I'ideal  pour  I'architecte, 
c'est  d'arriver  a  ce  que  chaque  detail  du  palais  qu'il  construit 
presente  a  la  fois  toutes  les  qualites,utilite,  agrement  et  beaute." 
"  Compte  Rendu  du  Congres  Scientifique  International  des 
Catholiques,"  tenu  a  Paris,  1891,  Section  d' Anthropologic,  p.  59. 


116  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

between  the  development  of  the  individual  and  the 
development  of  the  ancestral  line  to  which  the  indi- 
vidual belongs.  He  showed  that  in  every  organism, 
as  well  as  in  its  component  parts,  there  is  a  gradual 
progress  from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  from  the 
general  to  the  special.  As  Haeckel  puts  it,  "  ontog- 
eny is  a  recapitulation  of  phylogeny,  or,  somewhat 
more  explicitly,  the  series  of  forms  through  which 
the  individual  organism  passes  during  its  progress 
from  the  egg-cell  to  its  fully  developed  state,  is  a 
brief  compressed  reproduction  of  the  long  series  of 
forms  through  which  the  animal  ancestors  of  that 
organism,  or  the  ancestral  forms  of  its  species,  have 
passed  from  the  earliest  period  of  so-called  organic 
creation  down  to  the  present  time."  ' 

Thus,  observation  shows,  as  the  theory  of  Evolu- 
tion demands,  that  the  germs  of  all  animals  are,  at 
the  outset,  exactly  like  each  other;  but  in  the 
process  of  development  each  germ  acquires,  first, 
the  differential  characteristics  of  the  sub-kingdom  to 
which  it  belongs ;  then,  successively,  the  characteris- 
tics of  its  class,  order,  family,  genus,  species  and 
race.  For  example,  the  highest  mammal,  man,  be- 
gins his  corporeal  existence  as  a  simple  germ-cell,  in 
form  and  appearance  like  unto  an  adult  amoeba, 
and  utterly  indistinguishable  from  the  germ-cell  of 
other  vertebrates.  As  development  progresses  the 
embryo  gradually  becomes  more  and  more  differen- 
tiated. In  its  earlier  stages  it  may  be  recognized  as 
the  embryo  of  a  vertebrate,  but  it  is  impossible  to 
tell  to  which  class  of  vertebrates  it  belongs.     So  far 

»  "  The  Evolution  of  Man,"  vol.  I,  pp.  7-S. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  117 

as  appearances  go,  it  may  be  that  of  a  fish,  a  rep- 
tile, a  bird,  or  a  mammal.  Subsequently  it  exhibits 
the  characteristics  of  a  bird  or  a  mammal,  but  the 
order  to  which  it  pertains  is  disclosed  only  at  a  yet 
later  period.  At  a  still  later  stage,  after  manifest- 
ing the  characteristics  of  the  family,  genus,  and 
species  of  which  it  is  a  member,  it  acquires  the  dis- 
tinguishing attributes  of  its  race. 

Amphioxus  and  Loligo. 

A  more  striking  instance  of  recapitulation  is 
exhibited  in  the  life-history  of  the  amphioxus,  or 
lancelet,  interesting,  among  other  things,  for  being 
the  lowest  known  form  of  vertebrate.  Here,  as  in 
the  case  of  all  other  animals,  the  first  stage  of  devel- 
opment is  a  simple  germ-cell.  This  soon  subdi- 
vides, but  the  subdivisions,  instead  of  separating,  as 
occurs  in  many  of  the  lower  forms  of  life,  remain 
together  and  constitute  what  is  known  as  the  mor- 
ula stage,  because  of  the  resemblance  in  shape  of 
the  group  of  cells  to  a  mulberry  or  blackberry. 
They  subsequently  assume  a  tubular  form,  in  which 
condition  the  cells  are  disposed  around  a  central 
tube-like  cavity,  open  at  each  end.  This  is  suc- 
ceeded by  the  blastula  stage,  in  which  the  cells  are 
grouped  together  in  the  form  of  a  hollow  ball,  the 
outer  cells  being  provided  with  cilia,  thus  enabling 
the  embryonic  amphioxus  to  move  freely  in  the 
water.  This  condition  is  followed  by  a  series  of 
other  changes,  until,  finally,  the  animal,  after  numer- 
ous and  instructive  transformations,  acquires  the 
adult  form. 


118  EVOLUTION  AXD  DOGMA. 

Now,  the  interesting  fact  in  connection  with  the 
development  of  this  curious  animal  is,  that  the  vari- 
ous stages  through  which  it  passes  can  be  paralleled 
by  organisms  which  remain  permanently  in  the  con- 
ditions in  which  the  amphioxus  rests  but  temporarily. 

The  simple  unicellular  monad  illustrates  the  in- 
cipient condition  or  first  stage  of  the  amphioxus. 
The  second  stage  is  paralleled  by  the  pandorina, 
which  is  but  a  group  of  cells,  each  similar  to  the 
monad,  living  together  in  a  common  capsule.  The 
third  stage  is  represented  by  the  remarkable  salin- 
ella,  which  is  a  tubular  structure  composed  of  a 
single  layer  of  simple,  monad-like  cells.  The  fourth 
condition  is  found  in  a  common  fresh-water  volvox, 
which,  like  the  blastula  stage,  is  an  organism  con- 
sisting of  a  hollow  sphere  composed  of  a  single 
layer  of  simple  flagellate  cells. 

The  four  organisms  just  mentioned  do  not,  it  is 
true,  constitute  a  lineal  series,  a  series,  namely,  in 
which  the  more  complex  is  genetically  derived  from 
the  simpler.  But  they  prove,  nevertheless,  that  all 
the  earlier  temporary  stages  of  the  amphioxus,  the 
several  curious  embryonic  conditions  through  which 
it  passes,  can  be  paralleled  by  organisms  which 
have  an  actual  permanent  existence  as  adults,  and 
which  are  classed  as  so  many  distinct  species.  This, 
to  students  of  embryology,  is  a  very  remarkable 
fact,  and  to  the  evolutionist,  who  believes  that  the 
history  of  the  individual  is  but  a  recapitulation  of 
the  history  of  the  race,  it  is  profoundly  suggestive  and 
significant  and  seems  to  indicate  unmistakably  the 
derivative  origin  of  higher  from  lower  forms  of  life. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  119 

But  this  recapitulation  may  be  observed,  not 
only  in  the  organisms  themselves,  but  likewise  in 
their  constituent  parts.  A  striking  illustration  is 
afforded  in  the  development  of  the  eye  of  the  loligo, 
one  of  the  higher  cephalopoda,  as  compared  with 
the  rudimentary  eyes  of  various  species  of  mollusca. 
Thus,  as  the  late  Mr.  Marshall  tells  us:  '.'  In  solen  we 
find  the  simplest  condition  of  the  molluscan  eye, 
merely  a  slightly  depressed  and  slightly  modified 
patch  of  skin,  which  can  only  distinguish  light  from 
darkness,  and  in  which  the  sensitive  cells  are  pro- 
tected by  being  situated  at  the  bottom  of  the  fold 
of  skin.  In  patella  the  next  stage  is  found,  where 
the  eye  forms  a  pit  with  a  widely-open  mouth. 
This  is  a  distinct  advance  on  the  preceding  form, 
for,  owing  to  the  increased  depth  of  the  pit,  the 
sensory  cells  are  less  exposed  to  accidental  injury. 
The  next  stage  is  found  in  haliotis,  and  consists  of 
the  narrowing  of  the  mouth  of  the  pit.  This  is  a 
simple  change  but  a  very  important  step  forward, 
for,  in  consequence  of  the  smallness  of  the  aperture, 
light  from  any  one  part  of  an  object  can  only  fall 
on  one  particular  part  of  the  pit  or  retina,  and  so  an 
image,  though  a  dim  one,  is  formed.  The  next  step 
consists  in  the  formation  of  a  lens  at  the  mouth  of 
the  pit,  by  a  deposit  of  cuticle-;  this  form  of  eye  is 
found  in  fissurella.  The  gain  here  is  two-fold,  viz., 
increased  protection  and  increased  brightness  of  the 
image,  for  the  lens  will  focus  the  rays  of  light  more 
sharply  on  the  retina,  and  will  allow  a  greater  quan- 
tity of  light,  a  larger  pencil  of  rays  from  each  part 
of  the  object,  to  reach  the  corresponding  part  of 


120  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  retina.  Finally,  the  formation  of  the  folds  of 
the  skin,  known  as  the  iris  and  eyelids,  provides  for 
the  better  protection  of  the  eye,  and  is  a  distinct 
advance  on  the  somewhat  clumsy  method  of  with- 
drawal seen  in  the  snail.  This  is  found  in  the 
cephalopoda,  such  as  loligo. 

"  If  now  we  study  the  actual  development  of  the 
eye  of  a  cuttle-fish,  we  find  that  the  eye,  although 
a  complicated  one,  yet  passes  in  »ts  own  develop- 
ment through  all  the  above  series  of  stages  from  the 
slight  depression  in  the  skin,  through  the  stages  of 
the  pit  with  large  and  small  mouth,  lens,  and  finally 
eyelids,  being  developed."  * 

In  the  case  of  the  cuttle-fish,  as  well  as  in  that 
of  the  lancelet,  we  have  transitory  stages  paralleled 
by  permanent  conditions  In  lower  forms  of  life. 
The  eye  of  the  cuttle-fish,  as  just  stated,  not  only 
gives  an  epitome,  as  it  were,  of  the  history  of  devel- 
opment of  the  visual  organ  in  several  distinct  spe- 
cies of  mollusca,  but  also  traces  out  for  us,  according 
to  evolutionists,  the  gradual  development  of  the 
eyes  of  the  ancestral  forms  from  which  the  cuttle- 
fish itself  is  descended.  Each  stage  indicated  in 
the  development  of  the  cuttle-fish's  eye,  marks  a 
distinct  advance  on  the  one  preceding,  as  each 
stage  in  the  development  of  the  amphioxus  exhibits 
progress  from  the  simple  to  the  more  complex,  from 
the  less  highly  to  the  more  highly  organized. 

It  is  not,  indeed,  always  possible  to  adduce  such 
remarkable  examples  of  recapitulation  as  those  just 


^  "  Lectures  on  the  Darwinian  Theor3',"  by  Arthur  Milnes 
Marshall,  pp.  io6  et  seq. 


E  VIDENCES  OF  E  VOL  U  TION.  121 

instanced,  but  this  is  a  consequence  of  the  newness 
of  the  science  of  embryology,  and  of  our  ignorance 
of  details  which  shall  be  disclosed  by  future  re- 
search, rather  than  of  the  non-existence  of  such 
recapitulatory  illustrations.  Nor  is  it  necessary  that 
we  should  be  able  to  trace  such  parallelisms  in  all 
cases.  The  countless  numbers  which  embryologists 
have  already  pointed  out  are  abundantly  ample  for 
the  purpose  of  the  argument  in  question. 

Meaning  of  Recapitulation. 

The  marvelous  coincidences  and  analogies  we 
have  just  considered,  and  it  were  easy  to  add 
others,  suggest  questions  that  clamor  for  an  an- 
swer. Why,  then,  is  it,  that  every  complex  organ- 
ism thus  epitomizes  the  history  of  its  ancestors ; 
that  in  its  embryonic  life  it  exhibits  a  series  of 
forms  characteristic  of  organisms  lower  in  the  series 
of  which  it  is  a  member?  Many  of  the  stages 
through  which  it  passes  in  the  course  of  its  develop- 
ment have  no  adaptation  either  to  its  embryonic  or 
to  its  adult  condition.  Wherefore,  then,  the  reason 
of  the  existence  of  these  curious  stages? 

On  the  special  creation  hypothesis  they  admit  of 
no  rational  explanation  whatever.  "  What,"  queries 
Mr.  Lewes,  "  should  we  say  to  an  architect  who  was 
unable,  or  being  able,  was  obstinately  unwilling  to 
erect  a  palace,  except  by  first  using  his  materials  in 
the  shape  of  a  hut,  then  pulling  it  down,  and  re- 
building them  as  a  cottage,  then  adding  story  to 
story  and  room  to  room,  not  with  any  reference  to 
the  ultimate  purposes  of  the  palace,  but  wholly  with 


122  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

reference  to  the  way  in  which  houses  were  con- 
structed in  ancient  times?  What  should  we  say  to 
the  architect  who  could  not  directly  form  a  museum 
out  of  bricks  and  mortar,  but  was  forced  to  begin 
as  if  going  to  build  a  mansion ;  and  after  proceeding 
some  way  in  this  direction,  altered  his  plan  into  a 
palace,  and  that  again  into  a  museum  ?  Yet  this  is 
the  sort  of  succession  on  which  organisms  are  con- 
structed." On  the  theory  of  Evolution  all  this 
recapitulation  of  ancestral  forms,  so  characteristic  of 
higher  organisms,  admits  of  an  explanation  which  is 
as  beautiful  as  it  is  consonant  with  fact  and  reason. 
And,  from  the  theistic  point  of  view,  it  exhibits  the 
Deity  creating  matter  and  force,  and  putting  them 
under  the  dominion  of  law.  It  tells  of  a  God  who 
inaugurates  the  era  of  terrestrial  life  by  the  creation 
of  one  or  more  simple  organisms,  unicellular  mon- 
ads, it  may  be,  and  causing  them,  under  the 
action  of  His  Providence,  to  evolve  in  the  course  of 
time  into  all  the  myriad,  complicated,  specialized 
and  perfect  forms  which  now  people  the  earth. 
Surely  this  is  a  nobler  conception  of  the  Creator 
than  that  which  represents  Him  as  experimenting, 
as  it  were,  with  crude  materials,  and  succeeding, 
only  after  numerous  attempts,  in  producing  the  or- 
ganism which  He  is  supposed  to  have  had  in  view 
from  the  beginning.  To  picture  the  Deity  thus 
working  tentatively,  is  an  anthropomorphic  view  of 
the  Creator,  which  is  as  little  warranted  by  Catholic 
dogma  as  it  is  by  genuine  science.  It  is  rather  on 
a  par  with  the  view  of  those  theologians  and  scien- 
tists who  fancied  fossils  to  be  "rejected  models"  of 


E  VIDENCES  OF  E  V  OL  U  TION.  1 23 

creatures  subsequently  perfected,  or  tentative  and 
unfinished  efforts  toward  the  creation  of  organisms 
which  were  never  endowed  with  vitality  because  the 
Creator  was  not  satisfied  with  His  work.  This  is, 
certainly,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  sequel,  not  the  Au- 
gustinian  view  of  creation,  and,  to  those  who  are 
familiar  with  even  the  elementary  facts  of  embry- 
ology, it  cannot  be  the  scientific  view.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  embryology  the  great  body  of 
facts  make  for  the  theory  of  Evolution,  as  against 
the  theory  of  special  creation,  and  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing, therefore,  to  find  that  those  who  are  most  com- 
petent to  interpret  the  facts  of  the  case,  are  disposed 
to  regard  the  argument  from  embryology  as  of  itself 
sufificient  to  demonstrate  the  derivation  theory  of  all 
forms  of  animal  life. 

Geographical  Distribution  of  Organisms. 

There  yet  remains  another  testimony  to  be  con- 
sidered, and  that  is  the  argument  based  on  the  dis- 
tribution of  organisms  in  space  and  time,  or  in  other 
words,  the  argument  based  on  the  facts  of  geograph- 
ical distribution  and  geological  succession. 

One  of  the  most  striking  facts  of  natural  history 
is  that  which  regards  the  marked  diversity  of  the 
fauna  and  flora  of  regions  widely  separated,  or  of 
adjacent  regions  separated  by  impassable  natural 
barriers.  Thus,  the  animals  and  plants  of  Europe 
are  to  a  great  extent  unlike  those  of  America,  while 
those  of  Africa  and  Australia  are  entirely  different. 
Even  in  passing  from  one  portion  of  the  continent 
to  another,  the  observant  traveler  cannot  help  being 


124  B  VOL  UTION  A ND  D OGMA . 

impressed  with  the  divers  new  and  strange  organ- 
isms which  are  continually  presented  to  his  view. 
The  fauna  on  the  opposite  sides  of  mountain  chains 
are  often  quite  unlike,  although  the  conditions  of 
existence  may  be  essentially  the  same.  The  animals 
on  the  contiguous  islands  of  an  archipelago  are  specif- 
ically distinct  from  one  another,  and  generically  dif- 
ferent from  the  animals  on  the  nearest  mainland. 
The  marine  fauna  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama,  although  the  conditions  of  ex- 
istence on  the  eastern  and  western  shores  are  appre- 
ciably the  same,  are  almost  wholly  distinct,  when,  if 
we  considered  only  their  environment,  we  should 
expect  them  to  be  exactly  alike. 

Whithersoever  we  go,  we  observe  that  "  barriers 
of  any  kind,  or  obstacles  to  free  migration,  are  related 
in  a  close  and  important  manner  to  the  differences 
between  the  productions  of  various  regions.  We 
see  this  in  the  great  difference  in  nearly  all  the  ter- 
restrial productions  of  the  New  and  Old  Worlds, 
excepting  in  the  northern  parts  where  the  land 
almost  joins,  and  where,  under  a  slightly  different 
climate,  there  might  have  been  free  migration  for 
the  northern  temperate  forms,  as  there  is  now  for 
the  strictly  Arctic  productions.  We  see  the  same 
fact  in  the  great  difference  between  the  inhabitants  of 
Australia,  Africa  and  South  America  under  the  same 
latitude;  for  these  countries  are  almost  as  much 
isolated  from  each  other  as  is  possible.  On  each 
continent,  also,  we  find  the  same  fact ;  for  on  the 
opposite  side  of  lofty  and  continuous  mountain 
ranges,  of  great  deserts  and  even  of  large  rivers,  we 


E  VIDBNCBS  OF  E  VOL  UTION.  125 

find  different  productions;  though  as  mountain 
chains,  deserts,  etc.,  are  not  as  impassable,  or  likely 
to  have  endured  so  long  as  the  oceans  separating 
continents,  the  differences  are  very  inferior  in  degree 
to  those  characteristic  of  distinct  continents.'" 

An  instructive  illustration  of  the  matter  under 
discussion  is  afforded  by  Darwin,  in  his  observations 
on  the  flora  and  fauna  of  the  Galapagos  Archipel- 
ago. This  is  a  group  of  islands  situated  between 
five  and  six  hundred  miles  west  of  South  America,  the 
constituent  islands  being  separated  from  one  another 
by  straits  from  twenty  to  thirty  miles  in  width. 
'*  Each  separate  island  of  the  Galapagos  Archipel- 
ago," says  the  great  naturalist,  "  is  tenanted,  and  the 
fact  is  a  marvelous  one,  by  many  distinct  species ; 
but  these  are  related  to  each  other  in  a  very  much 
closer  manner  than  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Ameri- 
can continent,  or  of  any  other  quarter  of  the  world."  ' 

From  observations  made  by  naturalists  all  over 
the  world,  it  is  learned  that  the  foregoing  is  but  one 
of  countless  similar  instances  that  might  be  adduced. 
Hence  the  general  conclusion  reached  by  the  dis- 
tinguished German  savant,  Moritz  Wagner,  that  "the 
limits,  within  which  allied  species  are  found,  are  de- 
termined by  impassable  natural  barriers." 

Pacts  of  Geological  Succession. 

It  is  only,  however,  when  we  come  to  compare 
the  facts  of  geographical  distribution  with  those  of 
geological  succession,  that  we  are  able  to  appreciate 

'  Darwin's  '•  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  II,  pp.  130-131. 
'  Op.  cit.,  vol.  II,  p.  190. 


126  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  full  significance  of  the  observations  of  Darwin, 
Wagner  and  their  compeers.  It  is  then  found  that 
the  distribution  of  species  in  space  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  their  succession  in  time  ;  that  the  ani- 
mals which  occur  in  a  determinate  locality  at  pres- 
ent, closely  resemble  extinct  animals  which  inhabited 
the  same  locality  in  ages  long  past,  and  hence  the 
inference  the  naturalist  draws,  that  existing  types  in 
a  given  area  are  genetically  related  to  antecedent 
types  of  the  same  area.  Thus,  the  marsupials  which 
now  inhabit  Australia  are  allied  to  their  fossil  prede- 
cessors in  the  same  part  of  the  world.  Similarly,  the 
sloths,  ant-eaters  and  armadillos  now  found  in  South 
America,  are  intimately  related  to  numerous  fossil 
forms  which  have  been  brought  to  light  in  this  part 
of  the  Western  continent. 

Indeed,  it  is  just  such  facts  as  these  which  im- 
pelled Darwin  and  others  to  conclude,  that  existing 
species  must  have  originated  by  derivation  from  an- 
tecedent species,  and  that  the  divers  species  of  any 
given  area  are  but  modified  descendants  of  species 
long  extinct. 

"  I  was  so  much  impressed  with  these  facts," 
declares  Darwin,  "that  I  strongly  insisted,  in  1839 
and  1845,  on  this  'law  of  succession  of  types,'  on 
this  wonderful  relationship  in  the  same  continent, 
between  the  dead  and  the  living !  Prof.  Owen  sub- 
sequently extended  the  same  generalization  to  the 
mammals  of  the  Old  World.  We  have  the  same 
law  exhibited  in  his  restoration  of  the  extinct  and 
gigantic  birds  of  New  Zealand.  We  see  it  also  in 
the  birds  of  the  caves  of  Brazil.     Mr.  Woodward 


M  VIDMJ^CES  of  E  vol  UTtON.  l2t 

has  shown  that  the  same  law  holds  good  with  sea- 
shells,  but  from  the  wide  distribution  of  most  mol- 
lusca  it  is  not  well  displayed  by  them.  Other  cases 
could  be  added,  as  the  relation  between  the  extinct 
and  living  brackish-water  shells  of  the  Aralo-Caspian 
sea.'" 

It  is  no  explanation  of  the  facts  of  geographical 
distribution  to  say  that  species  are  specially  adapted 
to  the  habitats  in  which  they  are  found  ;  that  South 
America,  for  instance,  is  especially  fitted  for  eden- 
tates, and  Australia  for  marsupials.  "  That  it  is  not 
the  suitability  of  organisms  to  the  areas  which  they 
inhabit  that  has  determined  their  creation  upon 
these  areas,  is,"  says  Romanes,  "conclusively  proved 
by  the  effects  of  the  artificial  transportation  of 
species  by  man.  For  in  such  cases  it  frequently 
happens,  that  the  imported  species  thrives  quite  as 
well  in  its  new  as  in  its  old  home,  and  indeed  often 
supplants  the  native  species.  As  the  Maoris  say : 
'As  the  white  man's  rat  has  driven  away  the  native 
rat,  so  the  European  fly  has  driven  away  our  fly,  so 
the  clover  kills  our  fern,  and  so  will  the  Maori  him- 
self disappear  before  the  white  man.*  "' 

The  Demonstrative  Evidence  of  Evolution. 

We  come  now  to  what  Huxley  designates  spe- 
cifically "the  demonstrative  evidence  of  Evolution," 
the  evidence  based  on  the  lineal  succession  of 
several  carefully-studied  types,  and  above  all,  the 


'•'The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol,  II,  p.  121. 

'  "  Scientific  Evidence  of  Organic  Evolution,"  chap.  iv. 


128  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

evidence  based  on  the  ancestors  of  the  horse  dis- 
covered by  Marsh  and  others.  So  strong,  indeed,  is 
this  evidence  considered,  that  it  has  been  said  that 
if  the  theory  of  Evolution  had  not  existed  before, 
"paleontology  would  have  been  compelled  to  invent 
it,  so  clearly  are  the  traces  of  it  to  be  seen  in  the 
study  of  Tertiary  mammalia  discovered  since  1859." 

According  to  Prof.  Huxley,  "the  primary  and 
direct  evidence  in  favor  of  Evolution  can  be  fur- 
nished only  by  paleontology."  Again  he  avers  that: 
"  The  only  perfectly  safe  foundation  for  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution  lies  in  the  historical,  or  rather  archaeo- 
logical evidence,  which  is  furnished  by  fossil  remains, 
that  particular  organisms  have  arisen  by  the  gradual 
modification  of  their  predecessors."  He  tells,  too, 
that  "  On  the  evidence  of  paleontology,  the  Evolution 
of  many  existing  forms  of  life  from  their  predeces- 
sors is  no  longer  a  hypothesis,  but  a  historical  fact ; 
it  is  only  the  nature  of  the  physiological  factor  to 
which  that  Evolution  is  due  which  is  still  open  to 
discussion."' 

But  what  about  the  pedigree  of  the  horse  ?  What 
about  those  ancestral  equine  forms  about  which  so 
much  has  been  said  and  written? 

The  ancestors  of  the  horse,  as  revealed  by  the 
discoveries  of  Marsh  and  others,  are  "  Protohippus  or 
kipparion,  which  is  found  in  the  Pliocene ;  miohip- 
pus  and  mesohippus,  found  in  the  Miocene ;  orohippus 
in  the  Eocene ;  and  eohippus,  at  the  base  of  the  Eo- 
cene. In  the  protohippus  each  foot  has  three  well- 
formed  digits ;  miohippus,  in  addition  to  this,  has  a 

^"Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  vol.  VIII,  p.  751. 


B  VIDENCES  OF  E  VOL  UTION.  129 

rudimentary  metacarpal  bone  of  a  fourth  digit  in 
the  fore-foot ;  in  tnesohippus  this  rudimentary  meta- 
carpal bone  is  more  fully  developed ;  in  orohippus 
there  are  four  well-developed  digits  in  the  fore-foot, 
three  in  the  hind-foot ;  while  in  eohippus  five  digits 
are  present.  Thus,  this  series  of  fossil  forms  fur- 
nishes a  complete  gradation,  from  the  older  Tertiarj' 
forms  with  four  toes,  up  to  the  horse  with  one  toe. 
These  forms  differ  not  only  as  regards  the  number 
of  toes,  but  also  in  other  respects,  chiefly  in  the 
gradual  diminution  and  loss  of  independence  of  the 
ulna  and  fibula,  and  in  the  gradual  elongation  of  the 
teeth  and  increasing  complexity  of  the  grinding 
surfaces."  * 

Another  interesting  example  frequently  cited,  of 
transitionary  forms,  is  the  fossil,  planorbis,  found  in 
the  bed  of  an  old  lake  near  the  small  village  of 
Steinheim,  in  Wurtemberg.  In  the  successive  strata 
of  this  lake  bottom  occur  an  immense  number  of 
shells  of  divers  forms,  and  all  from  a  few  varieties 
of  one  and  the  same  species.  In  passing  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest  layers  a  great  modification  of 
forms  is  observed,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  were  it 
not  for  the  countless  intermediate  forms  one  should 
unhesitatingly  say  that  the  extreme  forms  belong, 
not  only  to  different  species,  but  even  to  different 
genera.  As  it  is,  however,  the  gradations  are  so  in- 
sensible  that   the  conclusion  is   almost    irresistible 


^  "  Lectures  on  the  Darwinian  Theory,"  by  Dr.  A.  M.  Mar- 
shall, p.  67.  For  an  interesting  discussion  with  diagrams,  of 
this  remarkable  series  of  ancestral  equine  forms,  see  the  third  of 
Huxley's  "  Lectures  on  Evolution,"  entitled  The  Demonstra- 
tive Evidence  of  Evolution. 

E.-9 


130  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

that  the  various  species  observed  are,  at  least  in 
this  case,  originated  by  derivation  with  modifica- 
tions.' 

The  case  just  adduced  is  frequently  appealed  to 
by  evolutionists,  not  only  because  it  has  been  exhaus- 
tively studied,  but  also  because  it  tells  so  strongly  in 
favor  of  the  theory  of  derivation. 

An  equally  striking  instance,  perhaps,  is  found 
in  the  case  of  another  group  of  mollusca  belong- 
ing to  the  paludina.  At  first,  the  six  or  eight 
known  gradational  forms  of  this  mollusc  were  reck- 
oned as  entirely  distinct  species.  Subsequently, 
however,  numerous  connecting  forms  were  discov- 
ered, so  that  now  over  two  hundred  varieties  are 
counted.  But  so  gradual  are  the  transitions  of 
one  form  into  another,  that  shells  which  other- 
wise would  be  considered  as  belonging  to  dif- 
ferent genera  are,  by  reason  of  the  known  con- 
necting links,  regarded  as  constituting  but  one  and 
the  same  species. " 

Similar  gradations  have  been  shown  by  Cope  to 
exist  among  certain  extinct  mammalian  forms,  not- 
ably among  the  species  of  the  generalized  family, 
oreontitcB,  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  give  further  illus- 
trations of  this  character,  as  those  just  instanced  are 
quite  sufficient  to  exhibit  the  nature  and  force  of 
the  argument  which  is  based  on  the  existence  of 
such  gradational  forms. 


'  Cf.  A.  Hjatt's  "Anniversarj  Memoir  of  the  Boston  Societj 
of  Natural  History,  1880,  on  Genesis  of  Tertiary  Species  of 
Planorbis  at  Steinheim." 

'  Cf.  Romanes'  •'  Darwin  after  Darwin,"  vol.  I,  p.  19. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  131 

Generalized  Types. 

Confirmatory  of  the  argument  founded  on  the  re- 
markable series  of  transitional  forms  we  have  just  been 
considering,  are  those  curious  extinct  animals  called 
by  Huxley  generalized,  and  by  Dana,  comprehen- 
sive types ;  types  which  by  Agassiz  were  variously 
designated  as  combining,  connecting,  synthetic  and 
prophetic  types,  and  which  embrace  those  strange 
creatures  that  embodied  the  characters  of  two  or 
more  groups  at  present  widely  separated  from  each 
other.  Among  these  were  certain  early  verte- 
brates which  possessed  both  fish-like  and  reptilian 
characters.  At  a  later  geologic  epoch  there  existed 
other  animals,  which  possessed  the  characters  of  rep- 
tiles and  birds  in  such  a  curious  combination,  that  we 
are  yet  unable  to  decide  whether  they  should  be 
called  reptilian  birds  or  bird-like  reptiles.  Among 
these  generalized  types  there  were,  in  the  words  of 
Grant  Allen :  "  Lizards  that  were  almost  crows,  mar- 
supials that  were  almost  ostriches,  insectivores  that 
were  almost  bats,  rodents  that  were  almost  mon- 
keys." "Just  on  the  stroke,  when  they  were  most 
needed,"  declares  the  same  writer,  "connecting  links 
turned  up  in  abundance  between  fish  and  amphibians, 
amphibians  and  reptiles,  reptiles  and  birds,  birds  and 
mammals,  and  all  of  these  together  in  a  perfect  net- 
work of  curious  cross-relationships." 

Among  these  generalized  forms  may  be  men- 
tioned the  archcBopteryx,  the  pterodactyl  and  the 
compsognathus.  "In  the  archceopteryx,''  sdiys  Hux- 
ley, "  we  have  an  animal  which,  to  a  certain  extent, 
occupies   a   midway   place    between   a   bird  and   a 


132  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

reptile."  The  pterodactyl  was  a  reptile  which  was 
avi-form  and  capable  of  flying.  The  compsognathus, 
like  the  archceopteryx,  was  intermediate  in  form  be- 
tween a  reptile  and  a  bird,  but  was  probably  rather 
an  avian  reptile  than  a  reptilian  bird. 

Again  we  have  such  fossil  vertebrates  as  Cuvier's 
anoplotherium,  which  was  intermediate  in  charac- 
ter between  pigs  and  ruminants  ;  the  palcBotherium 
which  connected  together  such  dissimilar  animals 
as  the  horse,  the  tapir,  and  the  rhinoceros.  More 
remarkable  still  are  the  generalized  types  known  as 
the  condylarthra,  the  primitive  form  of  which  Cope 
considers  the  common  ancestor  of  all  true  mam- 
malia.' 

And  so  we  might  mention  other  synthetic  types 
brought  to  light  by  Gaudry,  Riitimeyer,  and  other 
paleontologists.  It  was,  indeed,  M.  Gaudry 's  re- 
searches in  Attica,  where  he  discovered  an  extraor- 
dinary number  of  gradational  forms  among  the 
higher  vertebrates,  which  convinced  him  that  Evolu- 
tion is  the  only  theory  that  is  competent  to  ex- 
plain the  existence  of  those  remarkable  connecting 
types  which  are  every  day,  thanks  to  the  investiga- 
tions now  conducted  throughout  the  world,  becom- 
ing more  numerous  and  marvelous.  "A  few  strokes 
of  the  pick-axe  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Pentelicus," 
says  the  eminent  French  savant,  "  have  revealed  to 
us  the  closest  connecting  links  between  forms  which 
before  seemed  very  widely  separated." 

How  much  closer  and  more  remarkable  these 
links  will  become  with  the  progress  of  research,  when 

*  Cf.  "  Origin  of  the  Fittest,''  pp.  343,  et  seq. 


E  VIDENCBS  OF  E  VOL  UTION.  133 

the  as  yet  vast  and  unexplored  regions  of  the  earth 
shall  have  yielded  up  a  portion  of  their  fossil  treas- 
ures, can  easily  be  divined.  Already  the  general- 
ized fossil  types  which  have  been  discovered,  have 
completely  revolutionized  all  systems  of  classifica- 
tion which  were  based  on  existing  specialized  forms. 
For,  by  tracing  the  widely  separated  groups  of  the 
present  back  to  past  geologic  time,  we  find  that 
the  specialized  types  of  our  day  gradually  converge 
towards,  and  merge  into,  the  generalized  types  long 
since  extinct.  Species  the  most  diverse  gradually 
approach  each  other,  and  eventually  unite  to  form 
common  branches,  and  these  again  coalesce  in  a 
common  trunk.' 

And  this  is  just  what  the  theory  of  Evolution 
demands.  For,  "  If  the  theory  of  Evolution  be 
true,"  says  Huxley,"  it  follows  that  however  diverse 
the  different  groups  of  plants  and  of  animals  may 
be,  they  must  all,  at  one  time  or  other,  have  been 
connected  by  gradational  forms  ;  so  that,  from  the 
highest  animals,  whatever  they  may  be,  down  to 
the  lowest  speck  of  protoplasmic  matter  in  which 
life  may  be  manifested,  a  series  of  gradations,  lead- 
ing from  one  end  of  the  series  to  the  other,  either 
exists  or  has  existed." " 


^"  Hence,"  declares  Huxley,  in  his  article  on  Classification 
in  the  Encyclopsedia  Britannica,  "  it  follows  that  a  perfect  and 
final  zoological  classification  cannot  be  made  until  we  know  all 
that  is  important  concerning:  i,  the  adult  structure;  2,  the  per- 
sonal development;  3,  the  ancestral  development  of  animals. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe  that  our  present  knowledge, 
as  regards  even  the  first  and  second  heads,  is  very  imperfect ; 
while  as  respects  the  third  it  is  utterly  fragmentary. 

*  "  Lectures  on  Evolution."  Lecture  H. 


134  E  VOL  UTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Probability  of  Evolution. 

Such,  then,  in  brief,  is  the  argument  in  favor  of 
Evolution  from  classification,  morphology,  embry- 
ology, geographical  distribution  and  geological  suc- 
cession. The  argument,  as  based  on  any  one  of 
these  four  classes  of  facts,  is  strong,  and  to  many, 
if  not  most  contemporary  naturalists,  conclusive. 
But  when  we  consider  the  joint  effect  of  the  argu- 
ment built  on  the  four  classes  of  facts,  and  note  in 
detail  the  perfect  harmony,  the  argument  becomes 
still  stronger  and,  to  all  appearances,  irrefragable. 
The  evidence  furnished  by  one  class  of  facts  corrob- 
orates and  explains  those  offered  by  the  others,  and 
thus  the  cumulative  force  of  the  testimony,  given  by 
all  the  four  classes,  renders  the  theory,  to  say  the 
least,  in  the  highest  degree  probable.  We  may  not 
be  prepared  to  admit  that  the  theory  has  the  force  of  a 
demonstration.  If  it  had,  organic  Evolution  would 
cease  to  be  any  longer  a  matter  of  scientific  inquiry 
and  would  at  once  become  a  matter  of  scientific  fact. 

But  although  Evolution  is  but  a  theory,  and  not 
a  demonstration,  a  probability  and  not  a  certainty, 
it  nevertheless  possesses  for  the  working  naturalist  a 
value  that  can  be  fully  appreciated  only  by  those 
who  have  labored  in  the  museum  and  in  the  labora- 
tory. "  Probability,"  Bishop  Butler  tells  us,  "  is  the 
guide  of  life."  It  is  no  less  truly  the  guide  of  sci- 
ence, and  a  highly  probable  theory  often  contributes 
as  effectually  towards  the  advancement  of  science 
and  the  acquisition  of  truth  as  would  a  demon- 
strated fact. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  135 

From  what  precedes  it  is  evinced,  that  Evolu- 
tion as  a  theory,  to  claim  no  more  for  it,  is  in  the 
highest  degree  probable.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  sole  natu- 
ral explanation  of  the  facts  discussed  ;  the  sole  theory 
that  is  in  accordance  with  what  Sir  William  Hamil- 
ton calls  the  law  of  parsimony  ;  a  law  which  was 
fully  recognized  by  Fathers  and  Scholastics  when 
they  taught  that  we  should  not  invoke  the  action  of 
supernatural  causes,  when  natural  agencies  are  ade- 
quate to  account  for  the  facts  and  phenomena  ob- 
served. 

special   Creation  and  Evolution. 

Special  creation,  as  an  explanation  of  the  multi- 
tudinous fornis  of  life  with  which  the  earth  teems, 
and  has  teemed  during  long  aeons  past,  is  but  an 
assumption,  and  an  assumption,  too,  that  has  no 
warrant  outside  of  the  individual  opinions  of  certain 
commentators  of  Scripture;  opinions  which,  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  can  carry  with  them  no 
greater  weight  than  would  attach  to  the  views  of 
their  authors  on  any  other  question  of  natural  sci- 
ence. As  to  Scripture  itself,  and  the  teaching  of  the 
Fathers  and  Doctors  of  the  Church,  we  shall  see  in 
the  sequel  that  their  testimony  is  as  strongly  in  favor 
of  derivative  creation.  Evolution  under  the  Provi- 
dential guidance  of  natural  causes,  as  it  possibly  can 
be  in  favor  of  the  old  and  now  almost  universally 
discarded  theory  of  special  creations.' 


1'  En  paleontolog-ie,''  declared  the  Abbe  Guillemet  before 
the  International  Catholic  Scientific  Congress  at  Brussels  last 
year,  "  les  inductions  evolutionistes  expHquent  sans  peine  par  la 
descendance  d'ancStres  communs  ces  enchaincments  si  bien  mis 


136  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

As  a  theory,  Evolution  certainly  reposes  on  as 
firm  a  foundation  as  do  the  atomic  theory  of  matter 
and  undulatory  theory  of  light,  or  as  does  Newton's 
theory  of  universal  gravitation.  And  as  these  theo- 
ries have  been  of  priceless  service  to  the  chemist,  the 
physicist  and  the  astronomer,  in  the  study  of  their 
respective  sciences,  so  also  has  Evolution  been  of 
untold  value  to  the  naturalist,  in  enabling  him  to 
coordinate  a  vast  body  of  facts,  that  else  were  naught 
but  a  stupendous  chaotic  mass.  It  has  proved  to 
him  to  be  an  "open  sesame"  to  many  of  nature's 
secrets,  and  Hke  the  clue  of  Ariadne,  it  has  enabled 
him  to  find  his  way  out  of  the  bewildering  labyrinth 
in  which  every  true  student  of  nature  must  pass  at 
least  a  portion  of  his  existence. 

It  is  said  that  "  a  striking  corroboration  of  a  scien- 
tific theory  is  furnished  when  it  enables  us  correctly 
to  predict  discoveries."  Judged  by  this  standard 
Evolution  can  compare  favorably  with  the  best  ac- 
credited theories  of  modern  science.  It  will  suffice 
to  refer  to  but  two  cases  in  point,  although  it  were 
easy  to  adduce  numerous  others. 


en  evidence  par  des  savants  spiritualistes  et  Chretiens,  tels  que 
D'Omalius  d'Halloy  et  Albert  Gaudry,  et  dont  M.  de  Nadaillac 
nous  a  concede  la  realite.  Le  fixisme,  au  contraire,  en  est 
r^duit  a  invoquer  une  filiation  intellectuelle  dans  la  pensde  du 
Createur,  une  sorte  d'evolutionisme  ideal.  On  comprend  cela 
pour  un  architecte  humain,  qui  ne  pent  pas  tirer  une  cath^drale 
d'une  cathedrale  sinon  par  imitation.  Mais  celui  dont  '  les 
dons  sont  sans  repentance'  detruira-t-il  sans  cesse  ce  qu'il  a 
cree  pour  recreer  a  nouveau  ?  Ne  preferera-t-il  pas  conserver 
a  ses  creatures  une  vie  renouvelee  et  raieunie  dans  une  descend- 
ance qu'il  perfectionnera  de  generation  en  generation,  recom- 
pensant  par  I'ascension  de  fils  la  fidelite  des  prog^niteurs  a  leur 
lois  naturelles."  "  Compte  Rendu,"  Section  d'Anthropologie, 
p.  27. 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  137 

In  the  first  edition  of  his  "  Origin  of  Species  "  Dar- 
win  wrote :  "  We  may  thus  account  even  for  the 
distinctness  of  whole  classes  from  each  other — for 
instance,  of  birds  from  all  other  vertebrated  animals, 
by  the  belief  that  many  animal  forms  of  life  have 
been  utterly  lost,  through  which  the  early  progeni- 
tors of  birds  were  formerly  connected  with  the 
early  progenitors  of  other  vertebrate  classes." 

At  the  time  this  prophecy  was  made  there  was 
no  positive  evidence  of  the  existence  of  such  inter- 
calated forms  as  Darwin  required.  Three  years 
later  the  archceoptcryx  was  discovered,  meeting 
completely  all  the  requirements  of  theory.  Subse- 
quent discoveries,  notably  by  Marsh,  disclosed  other 
transitional  forms  which  "bridge  over  the  gap  be- 
tween reptiles  and  birds,  in  this  sense,  that  they  en- 
able us  to  picture  to  ourselves  forms  from  which 
both  birds  and  reptiles  as  we  know  them  could  have 
sprung." 

In  his  lecture  on  the  Evolution  of  the  horse,  in 
1876,  Prof.  Huxley  spoke  as  follows:  "Thus,  thanks 
to  these  important  researches  [those  of  Marsh  and 
other  paleontologists],  it  has  become  evident  that 
so  far  as  our  present  knowledge  extends,  the  history 
of  the  horse  type  is  exactly  and  precisely  that  which 
could  have  been  predicted  from  a  knowledge  of  the 
principles  of  Evolution.  And  the  knowledge  we  now 
possess  justifies  us  completely  in  the  anticipation 
that,  when  the  still  lower  Eocene  deposits,  and 
those  which  belong  to  the  Cretaceous  epoch,  have 
yielded  up  their  remains  of  ancestral  equine  animals, 
we  shall  find  first,  a  form  with  four  complete  toes, 


138  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA . 

and  a  rudiment  of  the  innermost  or  first  digit  in 
front,  with  probably  a  rudiment  of  the  fifth  digit  in 
the  hind  foot ;  while  in  still  older  forms  the  series  of 
the  digits  will  be  more  and  more  complete,  until  we 
come  to  the  five-toed  animals,  in  which,  if  the  doc- 
trine of  Evolution  is  well  founded,  the  whole  series 
must  have  taken  its  origin." 

Only  a  few  months  after  this  declaration,  Prof. 
Marsh  unearthed  in  the  Eocene  deposits  of  the  West 
an  equine  animal,  eohippus,  having  four  complete 
toes  and  a  rudimentary  one  in  the  front  foot,  thus 
making  good  the  first  part  of  the  prophecy.  As  to 
the  remaining  part,  it  is,  for  men  of  science,  only  a 
question  of  time  until  it,  too,  sees  its  fulfillment. 

But  the  theory  of  Evolution  enables  not  only  pal- 
eontologists, but  also  morphologists  and  embryolo- 
gists,  to  predict  the  unseen  and  unknown.  And  this, 
to  say  no  more,  is  certainly  a  strong  substantiation 
of  its  truth.  For  we  can  ask  no  more  of  a  theory 
than  that  it  accord  with  the  facts  it  is  designed  to 
explain.  And  the  more  perfectly  the  theory  har- 
monizes with  the  facts  observed,  the  more  nearly  is 
it  demonstrated,  so  far  as  any  purely  inductive  con- 
clusion can  be  demonstrated. 

The  theory  of  organic  Evolution  may  not,  as  yet, 
be  susceptible  of  an  experimental  demonstration — 
although  there  are  not  wanting  those  who  think  such 
a  demonstration  is  forthcoming,  if,  indeed,  it  has  not 
already  been  furnished — but  it  unquestionably  occu- 
pies a  high  rank  among  the  best  accredited  theories 
of  contemporary  science.  It  seems,  even  now,  to  re- 
pose on  as  firm  a  basis  as  did  the  Copernican  theory 


EVIDENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.  139 

in  the  days  of  Galileo  and  Tycho  Brahe.  For  Evo- 
lution, like  the  heliocentric  theory,  is  in  perfect  har- 
mony  with  all  the  manifold  facts  which  it  is  designed 
to  integrate  and  interpret.  How  long  will  it  be 
before  it  passes  from  a  theory  to  a  demonstration  ? 
Or,  will  it  ever  be  demonstrated  in  such  wise  as  to 
command  the  assent  of  all  who  are  capable  of  weigh- 
ing evidence,  and  discriminating  between  a  scientific 
fallacy  and  a  legitimate  scientific  induction  ? "  These 
are  questions  which  only  the  future  can  answer. 
Judging,  however,  by  the  progress  which  has  been 
made  during  the  past  half  century  towards  the  solu- 
tion of  many  of  the  problems  which  have  been  dis- 
cussed in  this  chapter,  it  does  not  seem  unreasonable 
to  express  the  belief  that  it  is  only  a  question  of  time, 
and  probably  not  a  very  long  time,  until  the  theory 
of  organic  Evolution  shall  be  as  firmly  established  as 
is  now  the  Copernican  one  of  the  solar  system. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

OBJECTIONS   AGAINST   EVOLUTION. 
Declarations  of  Anti- Evolutionists. 

HAVING  considered  some  of  the  arguments 
which  are  usually  adduced  in  support  of  Evo- 
lution, we  may  now  proceed  to  examine  certain  of 
the  objections  which  are  urged  against  it.  But  as  it 
would  require  a  large  volume  for  anything  approach- 
ing a  detailed  presentation  of  the  reasons  advanced 
for  the  acceptance  of  Evolution,  so,  likewise,  would 
it  demand  far  more  space  than  can  here  be  afforded 
for  even  a  cursory  discussion  of  the  difficulties 
which  anti-evolutionists  have  raised  against  a  theory 
which,  they  contend,  is  discredited  both  by  sound 
philosophy  and  the  incontestable  facts  of  science. 
"  The  theory  is  easy,"  declared  De  Quatrefages,  "  but 
the  application  is  difficult ;  hence  it  is  that  those 
transformists  who  have  attempted  this  application 
have  invariably  found  that  their  hypotheses  have  led 
to  conditions  which  are  inadmissible."  ' 


'  'Journal  des  Savants,  May,  1891. 

It  was  in  view  of  the  hypothetical  character  of  current 
evolutionary  teachings,  especially  of  natural  selection,  that 
Mgr.  d'Hulst  in  referring  to  them  expressed  himself  in  the 
following  forcible  and  epigrammatic  manner:  "  Le  besoin  de 
vivre  creant  la  vie,  le  besoin  d'organes  creant  les  organes,  le 
besoin  d'ordre  creant  I'harmonie."  Le  Correspondani,  Dec. 
25,  1889. 

(140) 


OBJ  EC  TIONS  A  GA  INS  T  BVOLU  TION.    141 

The  distinguished  French  savant,  Dr.  Charles 
Robin,  is  even  more  pronounced  in  his  views.  Evo- 
lution, he  asserts,  is  at  best  but  "a  poetical  accumu- 
lation of  probabilities  without  proofs,  of  seductive 
explanations  without  demonstration." 

As  to  the  defenders  of  the  theory  of  Evolution, 
they  are  accused  of  drawing  universal  conclusions 
from  particular  premises  ;  of  mistaking  resemblance 
for  blood  relationship ;  of  confounding  variability 
with  transmutability,  and  of  falsely  proclaiming  the 
existence  of  a  genealogical  succession  where  there  is 
nothing  more  than  a  hierarchy  of  organic  forms. 
Anti-evolutionists  may  not,  indeed,  deny  the  possi- 
bility of  the  derivation  of  higher  from  lower  forms 
of  life  ;  they  impugn  the  reality  of  such  derivation. 
They  love  to  descant  on  the  dictum  of  the  Scholas- 
tics, a  possibili  ad  actum  non  valet  consecutio — possi- 
bility is  far  from  implying  existence.  They  charge 
their  opponents  with  making  species  of  what  are 
only  races,  and  confidently  challenge  them  to  indi- 
cate a  single  instance  in  which  one  species  has  been 
changed  into  another  species,  either  in  historic  or  in 
geologic  time."     Species,  they  insist  on  it,  are  Divine 

^  A  few  years  ago,  in  1888,  M.  Emile  Blanchard,  a  distin- 
guished naturalist  and  a  member  of  the  French  Institute,  wrote 
as  follows  in  the  preface  to  his  interesting  work,  "  La  Vie  des 
Etres  Animes  :  "  "  J'ai  souvent  declare  autour  de  moi  que  si  un 
investigateur  par%enait  a  faire  la  demonstration  scientifique 
d'une  certaine  transformation  chez  quelques  representanls  d'un 
groupe  du  regne  animal,  je  me  tenais  a  sa  disposition  pour  pre- 
senter ce  resultat  a  I'Academie  des  Sciences,  pour  affirmer,  pour 
proclamer  le  triomphe  de  I'auteur."  So  far,  it  seems,  no  one 
has  accepted  his  challenge;  a  challenge  made  not  in  the  spirit 
of  animosity  or  party,  but  solely  in  the  interests  of  truth.  For 
as  yet,  the  eminent  savant  contends,  the  theory  of  transformism 
is  not  supported  by  a  single  serious  and  logical  argument.    And 


142  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

and  immutable.  With  Linnaeus,  they  declare  species 
and  genera  to  be  the  work  of  nature/  and  contend 
that  the  ingenuity  of  man  is  incompetent  to  produce 
anything  beyond  races  and  varieties. 

The  spider,  they  will  have  it,  still  spins  its  weh 
as  it  did  in  the  time  of  Aristotle,  and  the  ant  col- 
lects its  store  of  provisions  in  precisely  the  same 
manner  as  was  its  wont  in  the  days  of  Solomon. 

For  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  shall  limit  myself  to 
the  consideration  of  three  of  the  chief  objections 
urged  by  anti-evolutionists  against  the  theory  of 
derivation.  The  first  refers  to  the  alleged  ab- 
sence of  all  evidence  regarding  the  transmutation  of 

hence,  he  continues,  "  Plus  que  jamais  je  renouvelle  mon  appel, 
je  declare  ma  bonne  volont^,  assurant  que  je  ne  soufFrirais  en 
aucune  fajon  de  me  trouver  vaincu.  Ayant  pour  me  consoler 
la  perspective  d'un  progres  scientifique  dont  Timportance  serait 
immense,  c'est  de  toutes  les  forces  de  mon  ame  que  je  jette  cette 
parole  a  tous  les  amis  des  sciences  naturelles:  Montrcz-nous 
une  fois  Vexemfle  de  la  transformation  d'une  es/ece.'' 

'"  Natura  opus  semper  est  species  et  genus ;  culturje  s^epius 
varietas;  artis  et  naturae  classis  et  ordo."  Elsewhere  he  writes 
"  Classes  and  orders  are  the  inventions  of  science,  species  the 
work  of  nature  —  Classis  et  ordo  est  sapientiae,  species  naturae 
opus."  In  his  "  Philosophia  Botanica,"  ^  59,  he  declares  that 
genera,  like  species,  are  primordial  creations.  "Genus  omne  est 
naturale,  in  primordio  tale  creatum." 

In  contradistinction,  however,  to  the  above  dogmatic  state- 
ments, Linnaeus,  as  we  have  already  learned,  was  not  averse 
from  the  idea  that  certain  closely  allied  species  had  a  common 
origin  and  were  the  products  of  extended  variation  or  hybridiza- 
tion. Such  species  he  called  "  the  daughters  of  time  " — tem- 
poris  filije.  He  seemed  also  to  have  a  presentiment  that  the 
day  would  come  when  botanists  would  regard  all  the  species  of 
the  same  genera  as  descended  from  a  common  parent  "  Tot 
species  dici  congeneres  quot  eadem  matre  sint  progenitae,"  he 
writes  in  vol.  VI,  p.  12,  of  the  "Amoenitates  Academicse."  Nay, 
more,  in  this  same  work,  vol.  I,  p.  70,  he  suggests  that  not  only 
species  but  even  genera,  may  have  arisen  from  hybrids.  "  Novas 
species  immo  et  genera,  ex  copula  diversarum  specierum  in 
regno  vegetabili  oriri." 


OBJECTIONS  A GA INS T  E  VOL UTION.    143 

species  in  times  past,  whether  historic  or  geologic ; 
the  second  to  the  imperfection  of  the  geological  rec- 
ord; while  the  third  is  based  on  the  infecundity 
among  individuals  of  different  species.  All  three 
objections  are  obvious  and  popular  ones,  and  they 
are,  it  must  be  admitted,  not  without  their  difficul- 
ties. Men  of  science,  however,  are  satisfied  that 
they  have  met  these  difficulties,  and  flatter  them- 
selves that  they  have  long  since  given  adequate,  if 
not  complete,  answers  to  the  three  objections  men- 
tioned. But  the  objectors  themselves,  are  not  so 
minded.  They  still  persist  in  asserting  that  their 
difficulties  remain  unexplained,  and  that  their  ob- 
jections have  lost  little,  if  any,  of  their  original 
cogency. 

Historical  and  Archaeological  Objections. 

The  first  objection,  then,  is  based  on  certain  well- 
known  facts  of  history,  prehistoric  archaeology,  and 
paleontology. 

As  to  history  and  archaeology  we  are  informed, 
that  all  their  indications  positively  negative  the  con- 
tention of  evolutionists  that  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est evidence,  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  civilization 
until  the  present  time,  that  there  has  ever  been  a  sin- 
gle instance  of  the  transmutation  of  any  one  species, 
whether  plant  or  animal,  into  another  species.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  averred,  all  the  well-attested  facts 
of  history  bearing  on  the  subject,  make  unmistak- 
ably for  the  absolute  stability  and  immutability  of 
species  in  both  the  great  kingdoms  of  nature,  animal 
and  vegetable. 


144  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Regarding  animals,  the  testimony  elicited  is  as 
interesting  as  it  is  apparently  conclusive.  Thus,  a 
collection  of  shells  has  been  unearthed  in  the  house 
of  a  painter  in  Pompeii,  and  all  of  them,  even  in  their 
minutest  details,  are  identical  with  shells  of  the  same 
species  now  existing.  As  Pompeii  was  buried  in 
ashes  A.  D.  79,  we  have,  therefore,  certain  proof  that 
the  shells  of  the  species  in  question  have  undergone 
no  change  during  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years. 
The  anatomical  descriptions  given  by  Galen  of  the 
monkeys  which  he  dissected  in  Alexandria,  in  the 
second  century  of  our  era,  enabled  Camper  not  only 
to  recognize  the  species  to  which  they  belonged,  but 
to  affirm  that  the  species  had,  during  the  long  period 
elapsed,  remained  perfectly  immutable.  Aristotle, 
who  lived  in  the  fourth  century  B.  C,  has  left  us  ac- 
counts of  many  marine  and  terrestrial  animals,  and 
so  accurate  is  he  in  his  statements  that  naturalists 
are  able  to  assert  positively,  that  the  species  described 
have  undergone  no  change  during  the  long  centuries 
which  have  intervened  between  the  days  of  the  Stag- 
irite  and  our  own. 

But  the  monuments  of  the  Nile  valley  permit 
us  to  extend  our  observations  far  beyond  the  times 
of  Galen  and  Aristotle.  In  the  numerous  paintings, 
sculptures  and  bas-reliefs  of  this  marvelous  land,  we 
have  to  hand  an  astonishing  mass  of  evidence  and 
apparently  of  such  a  character  as  to  satisfy  the  ob- 
jections of  even  the  most  critical  and  skeptical. 

Egyptian  Mummies. 
The   attention  of   the   scientific  world  was  first 
directed   to   the  value  of  these  monuments  in  the 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.     145 

beginning  of  the  present  century.  During  the 
French  occupation  of  Egypt,  from  1797  to  1801,  the 
men  of  science  who  accompanied  the  army  made  a 
large  collection  of  the  embalmed  bodies  of  conse- 
crated animals  and  sent  them  home  to  swell  the 
treasures  of  the  museums  of  Paris.  Some  idea  of  the 
enthusiasm  excited  by  the  reception  of  these  precious 
remains  of  an  age  long  past,  may  be  formed  from 
the  following  passage  of  an  official  report  regard- 
ing them  drawn  up  by  Cuvier,  Lamarck  and  Lac6- 
p^de,  professors  in  the  Museum  of  Natural  History. 
"  It  seems,"  they  write,  "as  if  the  superstition  of 
the  ancient  Egyptians  had  been  inspired  by  nature 
with  a  view  of  transmitting  to  after  ages  a  monu- 
ment of  her  history.  That  extraordinary  and  eccen- 
tric people,  by  embalming  with  so  much  care  brutes 
which  were  the  objects  of  their  stupid  adoration, 
have  left  us,  in  their  sacred  grottoes,  cabinets  of 
zoology  almost  complete.  The  climate  has  con- 
spired with  the  art  of  embalming  to  preserve  the 
bodies  from  corruption,  and  we  can  now  assure 
ourselves  by  our  own  eyes  what  was  the  state  of  a 
great  number  of  species  three  thousand  years  ago. 
We  can  scarcely  restrain  the  transports  of  our  imag- 
ination on  beholding  thus  preserved,  with  their 
minutest  bones,  with  the  smallest  portions  of  their 
skin,  and  in  every  particular  most  perfectly  distin- 
guishable, many  an  animal,  which  at  Thebes  or 
Memphis,  two  thousand  or  three  thousand  years 
ago,  had  its  own  priests  and  altars." ' 


^  "Annales  du  Museum  d'Histolre  Naturelle,"  Tom.  I,  p.  234. 

E.— 10 


146  iB  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

Among  the  mummies  thus  collected  were  those 
of  wild  as  well  as  those  of  domestic  animals.  "  My 
learned  colleague,  M.  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,"  writes 
Cuvier  in  his  great  work,  "  Discours  sur  les  Revolu- 
tions de  la  Surface  du  Globe," '  "  has  collected  in 
the  temples  of  upper  and  of  lower  Egypt  all  the 
mummies  of  animals  he  was  able  to  procure.  He 
has  brought  back  ibises,  birds  of  prey,  dogs,  mon- 
keys, crocodiles,  the  head  of  a  bull,  all  embalmed ; 
and  one  does  not  discern  any  greater  difference 
between  them  and  those  we  now  see,  than  ■  is  ob- 
served between  human  mummies  and  the  skeletons 
of  men  of  the  present  day." 

Interesting,  however,  as  are  the  mummified 
remains  of  wild  animals,  those  of  domestic  animals 
have  a  greater  value  in  all  discussions  bearing  on 
the  question  of  transmutation  of  species.  Among 
the  animals  frequently  embalmed  were  the  dog,  the 
cat  and  the  bull.  But  since  the  times  when  these 
animals  were  worshipped  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile, 
representatives  of  their  species  have  been  trans- 
ported by  man  to  almost  every  portion  of  the  Old 
and  New  Worlds,  and  have  been  exposed  to  every  ex- 
treme of  climate  and  to  the  most  diverse  conditions 
of  life.  And  yet,  notwithstanding  all  these  great 
changes  of  environment,  the  cat  and  the  dog  have 
undergone  little  or  no  mutations,  and  the  bull  Apis 
which  was  such  a  special  object  of  worship  among 
the  Egyptians,  was  in  no  wise  different  from  repre- 
sentatives of  the  same  species  now  living. 


^  P.  132,  edition  of  1830. 


OBJECTIONS  A GA INS T  E  VOL UTION.    147 

Testimony  of  the  Monuments. 

The  testimony  afforded  by  mummies  is  corrob- 
orated by  that  of  the  monuments;  by  the  paintings, 
sculptures  and  bas-reUefs  which  adorned  the  temples 
and  tombs  of  the  Pharaohs.  Thanks  to  the  re- 
searches of  Nott,  Broca  and  others,  we  are  now  able 
to  assert  positively  that  the  greyhound  and  the 
terrier  of  the  days  of  Rameses  II.,  and  even  of  an 
earlier  date,  were  the  same  in  form  and  appearance 
as  they  are  at  present,  and  that,  consequently,  they 
have  suffered  no  perceptible  change  during  the  last 
four  thousand  or  more  years.' 

And  what  holds  good  for  the  dog  holds  good  also 
for  other  animals  which  are  represented  on  the 
monuments  of  the  Nile  valley.  "  I  have,"  says 
Cuvier,  "  examined  with  care  the  figures  of  animals 
and  of  birds  engraved  on  the  numerous  obelisks 
brought  from  Egypt  to  ancient  Rome.  In  their 
ensemble,  which  alone  was  the  object  of  special  atten- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  artists,  these  figures  bear  a 
perfect  resemblance  to  species  now  in  existence. 
Anyone  may  examine  the  copies  of  them  given  by 
Kircher  and  Zoega.     Without  preserving  the  defini- 


*  There  is  in  Egypt  an  indigenous  type  of  dog,  the  parias, 
formerl3'  in  a  domestic,  now  in  a  semi-wild  state,  which  can 
claim  a  much  greater  antiquity  than  the  greyhound  or  the 
terrier.  It  is  the  image  of  this  dog  that  constitutes  the  sole  and 
invariable  sign  for  the  word  "  dog  "  in  all  hieroglyphical  inscrip- 
tions, even  the  most  ancient.  This  dog,  there  is  reason  to 
believe,  existed  in  a  domestic  state  as  early  as  the  time  of  Mena, 
of  the  first  dynasty,  a  date  which,  according  to  Brugsch,  would 
carry  us  back  over  an  interval  of  more  than  six  thousand  years. 
And  yet,  despite  all  the  vicissitudes  through  which  they  have 
passed,  the  parias  of  to-day,  so  far  as  observation  can  discern, 
are  exactly  what  they  were  in  the  days  of  Egypt's  first  ruler. 


148  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

tion  of  the  original  engravings,  they  nevertheless 
offer  figures  which  are  readily  recognizable.  Among 
them  one  may  distinguish  the  ibis,  the  vulture,  the 
screech-owl,  the  falcon,  the  Egyptian  goose,  the  lap- 
wing, the  rail,  the  asp,  the  horned  viper,  the  long- 
eared  Egyptian  hare  and  the  hippopotamus.' 

The  monuments  of  Chaldea  and  Babylonia  tell 
the  same  story  as  those  of  Egypt,  On  a  magnifi- 
cent bas-relief  found  among  the  ruins  of  Babylon, 
dating,  it  is  said,  from  the  time  of  Nabuchodonosor, 
is  depicted  the  figure  of  a  noble  mastiff,  which  in 
form,  proportions  and  physiognomy  is  so  like  unto 
that  of  the  finest  type  of  a  modern  mastiff,  that  one 
would  say  the  engraving  was  made  from  a  photograph 
of  one  of  our  prize  exhibition  dogs.  Similarly,  Layard 
gives  us,  in  his  "  Nineveh  and  Babylon,"  a  drawing  of 
a  type  of  dog  of  which  the  characteristics  are  so 
marked  that  naturalists  have  had  no  difficulty  in 
identifying  it  with  a  race  still  occurring  in  Thibet. 

Evidence    From    Plants. 

What  has  been  said  of  animals  may  also  be 
iterated,  and  with  equal  truth,  of  plants  both  wild 
and  cultivated.  There  is  no  certain  evidence  that 
even  one  of  them  has  undergone  any  specific  change 
since  the  earliest  dawn  of  history.  More  than  this. 
as  far  back  even  as  paleobotany  will  serve  as  a 
guide,  we  are  unable  to  point  to  a  single  well-at- 
tested instance  of  transmutation  in  a  single  species 
of  plant. 

'  Op.  cit. 


OBJECTIONS  A GA INS T  E  VOL  UTION.     149 

Thus,  the  woods  used  in  mediaeval  buildings,  as 
well  as  those  found  in  the  buried  ruins  of  British 
and  Roman  villages,  differ  in  no  appreciable  feature 
from  existing  woods.  Again,  chestnuts,  almonds  and 
other  fruits  found  in  the  shop  of  a  fruit-dealer  in 
Herculaneum,  under  the  lava  deposits  made  eight- 
een centuries  ago,  are  identical  with  those  still 
grown  in  the  vicinity  of  Vesuvius. 

But  it  is  Egypt  which  supplies  us  with  the  best 
preserved  vegetable,  as  it  has  furnished  the  best  ani- 
mal specimens  of  an  ancient  date.  Recent  explora- 
tions, particularly  in  the  Nileland,  have  put  us  in 
possession  of  materials  which  are  far  better  for  pur- 
poses of  comparison  than  anything  which  had  been 
previously  known.  "And  happily,"  says  Mr.  Car- 
ruthers,  '*  the  examination  of  these  materials  has  been 
made  by  a  botanist  who  is  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  existing  flora  of  Egypt,  for  Dr.  Schwein- 
furth  has  been  a  quarter  of  a  century  exploring  the 
plants  of  the  Nile  valley.  The  plant  remains  were 
included  within  the  mummy-wrappings,  and  being 
thus  hermetically  sealed,  have  been  preserved  with 
scarcely  any  change.  By  placing  the  plants  in  warm 
water,  Dr.  Schweinfurth  has  succeeded  in  preparing  a 
series  of  specimens,  gathered  four  thousand  years  ago, 
which  are  as  satisfactory  for  the  purposes  of  science  as 
any  collected  at  the  present  day.  These  specimens, 
consequently,  supply  means  for  the  closest  examina- 
tion and  comparison  with  their  living  representatives. 
The  colors  of  the  flowers  are  still  present,  even  the 
most  evanescent,  such  as  the  violet  of  the  larkspur 
and  the  knapweed,  and  the  scarlet  of  the  poppy  ;  the 


150  B  VOL  VTION  AND  DOGMA . 

chlorophyll  remains  in  the  leaves,  and  the  sugar  in 
the  pulp  of  the  raisins.  Dr.  Schweinfurth  has  deter- 
mined no  less  than  fifty-nine  species,  some  of  which 
are  represented  by  the  fruits  employed  as  offerings 
to  the  dead,  others  by  flowers  and  leaves  made  into 
garlands,  and  the  remainder  by  branches  on  which 
the  body  was  placed  and  which  were  inclosed  within 
the  wrappings."  * 

Among  the  fruits  used  as  votive  ofTerings.  dates, 
figs  and  palm  fruits  are  common,  and  are  identical 
with  those  which  are  still  seen  in  the  markets  of 
Egypt.  Branches  of  the  sycamore,  one  of  the  sacred 
trees  of  Egypt,  which  had  been  used  for  the  bier  of 
a  mummy  belonging  to  the  twelfth  dynasty,  a  thou- 
sand years  B.C.,  "were  moistened  and  laid  out  by 
Dr.  Schweinfurth,  equaling,"  he  says,  "  the  best  sp>eci- 
mens  of  this  plant  in  our  herbaria,  and  consequently 
permitting  the  most  exact  comparison  with  living 
sycamores,  from  which  they  dififer  in  no  respect." 

Very  large  quantities  of  linseed,  found  in  tombs 
three  thousand  and  four  thousand  years  old,  differ 
in  nowise  from  the  linseed  still  cultivated  in  the 
Nile  valley.  And  from  the  seeds  examined  it  has 
also  been  evinced,  that  the  weeds  which  infest  the 
cultivated  fields  of  today  were  not  absent  from  the 


*  See  opening  address  before  the  Biological  Section  of  the 
British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  as  reported 
in  Nature^  Sept.  9.  1886.  Mr.  Carruthers  is  recognized  as  one 
of  the  most  eminent  of  contemporarj  English  botanists,  and 
hence,  his  words  in  the  matter  under  discussion  have  special 
weight. 

I  hare  mjself  examined  Dr.  Schweinfurth 's  wonderful  col- 
lections  in  Curo,  and  can  testify  that  Mr.  Carruthers"  account  of 
them  is  in  no  waj  exaggerated. 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.    151 

gardens  and  plantations  of  the  Pharaohs.  The  spiny 
medick  and  the  charlock,  for  instance,  were  as  much 
of  a  pest  to  the  growers  of  barley  and  flax  during 
the  age  of  the  pyrann id-builders,  as  they  are  to  the 
fellahin  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

"  It  is  difficult,"  continues  Mr.  Carruthers,  "  with- 
out the  actual  inspection  of  the  specimens  of  plants 
employed  as  garlands,  which  have  been  prepared  by 
Dr.  Schweinfurth,  to  realize  the  wonderful  condition 
of  preservation  in  which  they  are.  The  color  of  the 
petals  of  papaver  rheas,  and  the  occasional  presence 
of  the  dark  patch  at  their  bases,  present  the  same 
peculiarities  as  are  still  to  be  found  in  this  species 
growing  in  Egyptian  fields.  The  petals  of  the  lark- 
spur not  only  retain  their  reddish  violet  color,  but 
present  the  peculiar  markings  which  are  still  found 
in  the  living  plant.  A  garland  composed  of  wild 
celery  and  small  flowers  of  the  blue  lotus,  fastened 
together  by  fibers  of  papyrus,  was  found  on  a 
mummy  of  the  twelfth  dynasty,  about  three  thou- 
sand years  old.  The  leaves,  flowers  and  fruits  of  the 
wild  celery  have  been  examined  with  the  greatest 
care  by  Dr.  Schweinfurth,  who  has  demonstrated  in 
the  clearest  manner  their  absolute  identity  with  the 
indigenous  form  of  this  species  now  abundant  in 
most  places  in  Egypt.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
the  other  plants  used  as  garlands,  including  two 
species  of  lichens." 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  evidence  afforded  by  archae- 
ology and  paleobotany  is  as  direct  and  as  unequivocal 
as  that  of  history.  The  cereals  cultivated  in  prehis- 
toric times,  during  the  Roman  occupation  of  Britain, 


152  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

during  the  times  of  the  mound-builders  in  the 
Mississippi  valley,  and  during  the  reign  of  the  Incas 
in  Peru,  were  specifically  the  same  and  of  as  good 
quality  as  those  harvested  by  the  scientific  farmer 
of  to-day. 

And  yet  more.  We  may  even  go  so  far  back  as 
the  Glacial  and  pre-Glacial  periods — periods  so  re- 
mote that,  according  to  the  calculations  of  Lyell, 
Ramsay  and  others,  they  antedate  our  own  era  by 
fully  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  years — and  we 
fail  to  find  from  an  examination  of  the  vegetable  re- 
mains of  the  time,  that  there  has  been  any  transi- 
tion from  one  species  to  another.  Scores  of  trees 
and  plants  are  known  to  have  existed  during  pre- 
Glacial  times,  which  were  in  every  respect,  even  in 
the  venation  of  the  leaf,  identical  with  their  living 
representatives  of  the  present  day.  And  yet,  it  is 
urged  by  anti-transmutationists,  this  is  not  what  one 
should  expect  if  the  teachings  of  Evolution  be  true. 
For  as  Mr.  Carruthers  pertinently  observes  :  "  The 
various  physical  conditions  which  necessarily  af- 
fected these  species,  in  their  diffusion  over  such 
large  areas  of  the  earth's  surface,  in  the  course  of, 
say,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  years,  should 
have  led  to  the  production  of  many  varieties,  but 
the  uniform  testimony  of  the  remains  of  this  con- 
siderable pre-Glacial  flora,  as  far  as  the  materials 
admit  of  a  comparison,  is  that  no  appreciable  change 
has  taken  place." 

Views  of  Agassiz,  Barrande  and  Others. 

One  of  the  favorite  arguments  of  Professor 
Louis  Agassiz  against  the  transmutation  of  species. 


OBJBCTTONS  A  GAINS  T  E  VOL  UTION.    153 

was,  as  is  well  known,  based  on  the  observed  perma- 
nence of  divers  species  of  the  marine  forms  which 
contributed  towards  the  production  of  the  coral  reefs 
of  Florida.  In  his  charming  work,  "Methods  of  Study 
in  Natural  History," '  the  illustrious  Swiss  savant 
declares  that  "  upon  the  lowest  calculation,  based 
upon  the  facts  thus  far  ascertained  as  to  their  growth, 
we  cannot  suppose  that  less  than  seventy  thousand 
years  have  elapsed  since  the  coral  reefs  already 
known  to  exist  in  Florida  began  to  grow."  And 
as  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  entire  penin- 
sula of  Florida  is  formed  "  of  successive  concentric 
reefs,  we  must,"  the  same  authority  asserts,  "believe 
that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  have  elapsed 
since  its  formation  began." 

Continuing,  he  writes  :  "  So  much  for  the  dura- 
tion of  the  reefs  themselves.  What,  now,  do  they 
tell  us,  of  the  permanence  of  the  species  of  which 
they  were  formed  ?  In  these  seventy  thousand 
years  has  there  been  any  change  in  the  corals  living 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  ?  I  answer,  most  emphat- 
ically. No.  Astraeans,  pontes,  maeandrinas,  and 
madrepores  were  represented  by  exactly  the  same 
species  seventy  thousand  years  ago  as  they  are 
now.  Were  we  to  classify  the  Florida  corals  from 
the  reefs  of  the  interior,  the  result  would  corre- 
spond exactly  to  a  classification  founded  upon  the 
living  corals  of  the  outer  reefs  to-day.  Every  spe- 
cies, in  short,  that  lives  upon  the  present  reef  is 
found  in  the  more  ancient  one.  They  all  belong  to 
our  own  geological  period,  and  we  cannot,  upon  the 

'  Chap.  XII. 


154  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

evidence  before  us,  estimate  its  duration  at  less  than 
seventy  thousand  years,  during  which  time  we  have 
no  evidence  of  any  change  in  species,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  strongest  proof  of  the  absolute  perma- 
nence of  those  species  whose  past  history  we  have 
been  able  to  trace." 

But  strong  as  is  the  evidence  just  adduced,  against 
the  mutability  of  species,  that  based  on  the  investi- 
gation of  the  eminent  French  paleontologist,  Joachim 
Barrande,  is,  so  we  are  told,  even  more  conclusive, 
and  that  for  the  reason  that  it  extends  over  a  vastly 
longer  period  of  time.  Barrande  was  undoubtedly 
one  of  the  most  careful  and  most  successful  inquirers 
into  the  life-history  of  certain  periods  of  the  remote, 
geologic  past,  whom  the  world  has  yet  known.  In 
Bohemia  he  had  an  exceptionally  favorable  area  for 
the  study  of  the  fossiliferous  strata  of  the  Silurian 
Age,  and  his  masterly  work,  "  Syst^me  Silurien  de 
la  Boh^me,"  the  most  complete  production  of  the 
kind  in  existence,  will  ever  remain  a  noble  monu- 
ment to  his  untiring  industry  and  his  incomparable 
genius  for  research  in  the  domain  of  the  earlier  forms 
of  terrestrial  life. 

The  conclusion  which  this  eminent  man  of  science 
arrives  at,  after  long  years  of  patient  investigation, 
and  after  the  most  careful  examination  of  many 
thousands  of  specimens,  is,  to  quote  his  own  words, 
as  follows :  "Among  the  three  hundred  and  fifty 
species  (of  trilobites)  of  Bohemia,  there  is  not  a  sin- 
gle one  which  can  be  considered  as  having  produced 
by  its  variations  a  new  specific  form,  distinct  and 
permanent.     Thus,  the  traces  of  transformation  by 


OBJE  C  TIONS  A  GA  INS  T  B  VOL  U  TION.    1 55 

way  of  filiation,  are  completely  imperceptible  among 
the  trilobites  of  the  Silurian  Age  in  Bohemia."  * 

Concerning  cephalopods,  of  which  more  than  a 
thousand  distinct  forms  are  described,  M.  Barrande 
declares,  that  there  is  not  one  among  them,  however 
long  the  species  may  have  lasted,  which,  during  the 
different  stages  of  its  existence,  presents  more  marked 
differences  than  do  those  which  coexist  on  the  same 
horizon  ;  that  not  a  single  one  of  the  countless  ceph- 
alopods which  were  examined  by  him,  can  be  consid- 
ered as  even  the  first  step  towards  transformation, 
for  all  these  forms  disappear  simultaneously,  with- 
out any  recognizable  posterity. 


*  In  view  of  the  importance  of  M.  Barrande-S  testimony,  I 
here  present  his  conclusions  in  full,  as  found  in  his  work  entitled, 
"Defense  des  Colonies,"  p.  155. 

"  I.  Les  Trilobites  de  Boheme  qui  offrent  dans  leurs  formes 
la  trace  de  quelques  variations  sont  au  nombre  de  10.  Comme 
nous  connaissons  aujourd'hui  350  especes  de  cette  tribu,  dans 
notre  bassin,  on  voit  qu'il  en  reste  environ  340  qui  paraissent 
conserver  une  forme  invariable,  pendant  toute  la  duree  de  leur 
existence. 

"  2.  Les  variations  signalees  dans  les  especes  qui  ont  joui  de 
la  plus  grande  longevite,  sont  relatives  seulement  aux  dimensions 
du  corps,  a  la  grosseur  des  yeux,  au  nombre  correspondant  des 
lentilles,  au  nombre  des  articulations  visibles  du  pygidium,  et  au 
nombre  des  pointes  ornementales. 

"  3.  Ces  variations  ne  sont  pas  permanentes,  xnz.\%puretnent 
temporaires,  et,  dans  la  plupart  des  cas,  nous  avons  constat^  le 
retour  des  derniers  reprSsentants  de  Tespece  a  la  forme  typique 
ou  primitive.  Ainsi  ces  variations  ne  semblent  etre  que  des 
oscillations  transitoires.  Elles  se  manifestent  quelquefois  parmi 
des  individus  contemporains,  et,  par  consequent,  sans  I'influence 
des  ages  geologiques. 

"4.  Parmi  les  350  especes  de  Boheme,  il  n'en  existe  aucune 
qui  puisse  etre  consideree  comme  ayant  produit,  par  ses  varia- 
tions, une  nouvelle  forme  specifique,  distincte  et  permanente. 
Ainsi,  les  traces  de  la  transformation,  par  voie  de  filiation,  sont 
conpletement  imperceptibles  parmi  les  trilobites  du  Silurien  de 
Boheme." 


156  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Davidson's  exhaustive  researches  on  the  brachio- 
pods  of  the  English  formations,  lead  him  to  the  same 
conclusions  as  those  arrived  at  by  Barrande  after  his 
prolonged  studies  of  the  trilobites  and  cephalopods 
of  Bohemia,  viz.,  that  there  is  not  the  slightest 
trace  of  any  tendency  towards  development  on  the 
part  of  the  species  examined. 

Similar  testimony  is  given  by  Mr.  Williamson 
regarding  fossil  plants.  After  forty  years  of  patient 
study  of  the  vegetable  remains  of  different  geolog- 
ical ages,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the  ferns 
whose  imprints  are  of  such  frequent  occurrence  in 
certain  strata  of  the  Carboniferous  Age,  have  re- 
tained their  essential  characteristics  until  the  present 
time.  For,  if  we  compare  those  which  now  abound 
in  our  forests  with  those  which  gave  beauty  to  the 
landscape  in  Paleozoic  time,  we  find  that  they  have 
neither  advanced  nor  retrograded. 

It  were  easy  to  add  to  the  list  of  persistent  types 
of  animals  and  plants,  of  those,  namely,  which  en- 
dured unchanged  during  long  geologic  periods.  I 
might  speak  of  the  terebratulae  and  globigerinae 
which  take  us  back  to  the  Cretaceous  Period ;  of 
certain  types  of  scorpions  which  flourished  during 
the  Carboniferous  Age  and  which  are  scarcely  dis- 
tinguishable from  modern  scorpions ;  of  the  lingulae 
and  lingulellae  which,  appearing  in  the  lower  Silu- 
rian rocks,  have  persisted  practically  unchanged 
through  all  the  grand  climacterics  of  the  world.' 


*  For  able  and  dignified  discussions  of  the  questions  here 
considered,  see  "  Paleontologie  et  Darwinisme,"  by  the  eminent 
Belgian  geologist,  Charles  de  la  Vallee   Poussin,  in  the  ''  Revue 


OByECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.    157 

In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  presented  fully, 
and  somewhat  in  detail,  one  of  the  stock  arguments  of 
anti-evolutionists  against  the  transmutation  of  spe- 
cies. I  have  allowed  the  ablest  and  most  noted  oppo- 
nents of  the  Evolution  theory  to  present  their  objec- 
tion in  their  own  words,  and  have  endeavored  to  select 
what  have  always  been  considered  the  most  telling 
arguments  against  transpeciation.  What,  now,  is  the 
answer  to  the  objection,  or  is  any  answer  possible  ? 
What  explanation  can  be  given  of  facts  which  seem 
so  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  cardinal  principles 
of  Evolution,  and  so  antagonistic  to  the  fundamen- 
tal tenets  of  the  leading  exponents  of  transformism. 

Misapprehension  of  the  Nature  of  Evolution  and  Answer 
to  Objections. 

The  objection,  as  presented,  rests  on  a  total 
misapprehension  of  the  nature  of  Evolution.  It 
assumes  that  when  an  animal  or  a  vegetable  form 
once  comes  into  existence,  it  must  necessarily  and 
continuously  undergo  progressive  modifications.  It 
assumes,  too,  that  such  modifications  as  may  oc- 
cur, must  take  place  at  the  same  rate  in  one  form  of 
life  as  in  another.  Both  these  postulates  are  equally 
unwarranted,  for  they  are  both  totally  at  variance 
with  Evolution  as  understood  by  its  founders  and 
approved  spokesmen. 

An  answer,  however,  to  the  objection,  was  indi- 
cated nearly  a  century  ago  by  Cuvier's  great  con- 

de  Questions  Scientifiques  "  for  January,  1S77,  and  "  Le  Trans- 
formisme  et  la  Discussion  Libre,"  in  the  same  review  for  Janu- 
ary and  April,  1889,  by  De.  Kirwan,  who  writes  under  the 
pseudonym  of  Jean  d'  Estienne. 


158  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

temporary,  Lamarck.  Replying  to  the  argument 
based  on  the  unchanged  condition  of  the  fauna 
and  flora  of  Egypt,  he  observed  that  "  the  animals 
and  plants  referred  to  had  not  experienced  any 
modification  in  their  specific  characters,  because  the 
climate,  soil  and  other  conditions  of  life  had  not 
varied  in  the  interval.  But  if,"  he  continued,  "  the 
physical  geography,  temperature  and  other  natural 
conditions  of  Egypt,  had  altered  as  much  as  we 
know  they  have  done  in  many  countries  in  the 
course  of  geological  periods,  the  same  animals  and 
plants  would  have  deviated  from  their  pristine  types 
so  widely  as  to  rank  as  new  and  distinct  species."  * 

This  answer  of  Lamarck's  is,  with  some  modifi- 
cations, the  answer  which  is  now  given  by  men  of 
science  to  the  objection  under  consideration.  When- 
ever the  environment  remains  unchanged,  where  the 
conditions  of  life  are  always  identical,  the  fauna  and 
flora  of  a  given  area  may  persist  without  any  spe- 
cific mutations  for  an  indefinite  period  of  time.  Re- 
garding Egypt  it  is  notorious,  that  its  climate  and 
soil  are  to-day  precisely  what  they  were  during  the 
reign  of  the  first  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  precisely  what 
they  were  when  the  bull  Apis  was  led  in  solemn  pro- 
cession to  the  temples  of  Memphis  and  Heliopolis. 
As  to  other  examples  of  animals  and  plants  which 
.have  resisted  specific  change,  not  only  during  thou- 
sands, but  also  millions  of  years,  the  same  answer 
may  be  given.  The  environment  may  have  been 
modified  more  or  less,  but  not  sufficiently  to  effect 


Philosophie  Zoologique,"  pp.  70,  et  seq. 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.    159 

transmutation  of  the  species  named.  For  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  that  all  species  are  not  equally 
susceptible  of  change  in  consequence  of  mutations 
of  climate  and  physical  geography.  Some  are  more 
stable  and  more  cosmopolitan  than  others,  and 
hence  are  capable  of  accommodating  themselves 
within  certain  limits  to  quite  considerable  changes 
in  surrounding  conditions,  without  exhibiting  the 
slightest  indications  of  specific  transmutations. 

Then,  too,  we  have  "  elastic  types,"  those  types, 
namely,  which  as  M.  Gaudry  tells  us,  have  the 
power  of  undergoing  greater  or  less  modifications 
and  of  returning  sooner  or  later  to  their  original 
condition.  The  rhynconella  is  a  case  in  point. 
When  the  ocean  bed  is  in  anywise  modified,  rhyn- 
conella exhibits  a  corresponding  change ;  when  the 
ocean  returns  to  its  original  state,  rhynconella  re- 
verts to  its  pristine  condition.  Thus,  in  virtue  of 
its  elasticity,  of  its  facility  of  accommodating  itself 
to  changes  of  environment,  this  marvelous  brachio- 
pod  has  been  able  to  pass  unscathed  through 
mutations  and  catastrophes  innumerable. 

Again,  it  may  be  observed,  that  the  changes  of 
environment  are  not  always  so  great  as  they  are 
sometimes  imagined  to  be.  Thus,  the  conditions  of 
life  in  a  given  area  of  the  ocean  may  remain  practi- 
cally unchanged  for  long  geological  periods.  The 
temperature  and  depth  of  the  water  might  easily 
remain  constant  for  untold  sons,  and,  in  such  an 
event,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  ocean  fauna  should 
not  endure  without  variation  for  an  indefinite 
time. 


180  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Even  in  the  case  of  the  vegetable  organisms 
which  Mr.  Carruthers  puts  in  evidence,  there  is 
reason  to  beHeve  that  the  variations  in  cHmate  to 
which  they  have  been  subject,  have  been  far  less 
than  is  usually  thought.  We  can  say  of  these  what 
Darwin  asserts  of  certain  Arctic  forms,  that  "  they 
will  not  have  been  exposed  to  any  great  diversity  of 
temperature  and,  as  they  all  migrated  in  a  body 
together,  their  mutual  relations  will  not  have  been 
much  disturbed."  '  Where,  however,  Arctic  species 
have  been  left  stranded  on  Alpine  areas  by  the 
retreat  of  glaciation,  and  where  the  species  thus 
isolated  have  been  subsequently  exposed  to  differ- 
ences of  climate,  and  to  the  influences  of  foreign 
plants  and  insects,  we  would  expect  to  discover 
evidences  of  transmutation,  to  find  the  stranded 
species  to  differ,  not  only  from  their  parent  Arctic 
forms,  but  to  differ  also  from  those  of  the  same 
origin  occurring  on  neighboring  mountain  ranges. 
And  this  is  what  Darwin  tells  us  is  the  fact,  "  for  if," 
he  says,  "  we  compare  the  present  Alpine  plants  and 
animals  of  the  several  great  European  mountain 
ranges,  one  with  another,  though  many  of  the 
species  remain  identically  the  same,  some  exist  as 
varieties,  some  as  doubtful  forms  or  sub-species,  and 
some  as  distinct,  yet  closely  allied  species,  repre- 
senting each  other  on  the  several  ranges."  * 

In  the  instance  just  quoted,  as  in  countless 
others  that  might  be  adduced,  we  have  an  illustra- 
tion of  a  phenomenon  with  which  all  naturalists  are 

^  "  The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  II,  p.  154. 
'Op.  cit.  vol.  II,  p.  155. 


OBJE C TIONS  A GA INS T  EVOLU TIO^ .    161 

familiar,  to-wit,  that  some  types,  both  of  animals 
and  plants,  are  more  plastic  than  others.  Those 
which  are  the  most  plastic  most  readily  undergo 
specific  transformation,  whilst,  on  the  contrary, 
those  which  are  rigid  experience  little  or  no  change, 
even  when  exposed  to  very  considerable  mutations 
of  environment. 

Existence  and  Cause  of  Variations. 

Of  the  existence  of  variations,  numerous  and  im- 
portant, there  can  then  be  no  reasonable  doubt.  This 
fact,  long  known,  is  daily  corroborated  by  evidence 
which  cannot  be  gainsaid.  But  the  existence  of 
variations  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  cause 
which  originates  them,  for  this,  as  yet,  is  shrouded 
in  mystery.  Huxley  admits  this  without  hesitation 
and  refers  to  it  as  follows :  "  The  cause  of  the  pro- 
duction of  variations  is  a  matter  not  at  all  properly 
understood  at  present.  Whether  variation  depends 
upon  some  intricate  machinery,  if  I  may  use  the 
phrase,  of  the  living  organism  itself,  or  whether 
it  arises  through  the  influence  of  conditions  upon 
that  form,  is  not  certain,  and  the  question  for  the 
present  may  be  left  open.  But  the  important  point 
is  that,  granting  the  existence  of  the  tendency  to  the 
production  of  variations,  then,  whether  the  varia- 
tions which  are  produced  shall  survive  and  supplant 
the  parent,  or  whether  the  parent  form  shall  survive 
and  supplant  the  variations,  is  a  matter  which  de- 
pends entirely  on  those  conditions  which  give  rise 
to  the  struggle  for  existence.  If  the  surrounding 
conditions  are  such  that  the  parent  form  is   more 


162  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

competent  to  deal  with  them,  and  flourish  in  them, 
than  the  derived  forms,  then  in  the  struggle  for  exis- 
tence the  parent  form  will  maintain  itself  and  the 
derived  forms  will  be  exterminated.  But  if,  on  the 
contrary,  the  conditions  are  such  as  to  be  more  fa- 
vorable to  a  derived  than  to  a  parent  form,  the  parent 
form  will  be  extirpated  and  the  derived  form  will  take 
its  place.  In  the  first  place  there  will  be  no  pro- 
gression, no  change  of  structure,  through  any 
imaginable  series  of  ages ;  and  in  the  second  place 
there  will  be  modification  and  change  of  form."  ' 

Paucity  of  Transitional  Forms. 

The  second  objection,  like  the  preceding,  is  an 
obvious  one,  and  at  first  sight  equally  plausible.  It 
is  based  on  the  paucity  of  transitional  forms,  or 
"  missing  links,"  in  the  various  sedimentary  strata  of 
the  earth's  crust.  At  first  blush  the  objection 
seems  to  be  fatal  to  the  theory  of  Evolution,  as  it 
certainly  would  be  fatal,  if  well  founded,  to  the  the- 
ory of  natural  selection,  which  supposes  that  species 
have  advanced  from  lower  to  higher  forms  by  infini- 
tesimal increments.  So  much  importance,  indeed, 
does  Darwin  attach  to  this  objection,  that  he  devotes 
a  whole  chapter  in  his  "  Origin  of  Species  "  to  its  so- 
lution. And  although  he  frankly  admits  that  the 
geological  record,  so  far  as  at  present  known,  still 
opposes  insuperable  difficulties  to  his  theory  of  nat- 
ural selection,  it  does  not  follow,  as  we  shall  see  far- 
ther on,  that  such  difficulties  can  validly  be  urged 

*"  Science  and  Hebrew  Tradition,"  pp.  83  and  84. 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.    163 

against  the  general  theory  of  organic  Evolution,  as 
distinguished  from  Evolution  through  natural  selec- 
tion. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  transi- 
tional forms  are  the  first  to  become  extinct  in  the 
struggle  for  existence;  for  it  is  well  known  that 
competition  is  more  marked  and  devastating  among 
intermediate  or  intercalated  forms,  than  among  forms 
which  are  more  widely  divergent.  Thus,  in  phi- 
lology it  is  remarked,  that  among  a  large  number  of 
dialects,  certain  closely  allied  ones  die  out,  whilst 
others,  more  widely  differentiated,  become  the  domi- 
nant forms  of  speech.  The  means  perish,  while  the 
extremes  wax  strong  and  end  by  attaining  suprem- 
acy. Hence,  of  the  countless  dialects  which  in  Italy, 
France  and  Spain  had  their  origin  in  the  Latin 
tongue,  but  three  have  attained  to  the  dignity  of  a 
dominant  language,  and  of  being  the  vehicle  of  a 
national  literature.  These  three  are  what  are  now 
known  as  the  Italian,  French  and  Spanish  languages, 
the  competing  dialects  having  been  worsted  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  and  condemned  to  an  earlier  or 
later  extinction. 

A  process  quite  analogous  to  this  goes  on  among 
the  divers  forms  of  animated  nature,  the  means 
showing  themselves  the  weaker,  and  the  extremes 
exhibiting  themselves  the  stronger  in  the  contest 
for  supremacy.  Commenting  on  this  fact,  Darwin 
writes  as  follows:  "As  the  species  of  the  same  genus 
usually  have,  though  by  no  means  invariably,  much 
similarity  in  habits  and  constitution,  and  always  in 
structure,  the  struggle  will  generally  be  more  severe 


164  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

between  them,  if  they  come  into  competition  with 
each  other,  than  between  the  species  of  distinct 
genera.  We  see  this  in  the  recent  extension  over 
the  United  States,  of  one  species  of  swallow,  having 
caused  the  decrease  of  another  species.  The  recent 
increase  of  the  missel-thrush  in  parts  of  Scotland  has 
caused  the  decrease  of  the  song-thrush.  How  fre- 
quently we  hear  of  one  species  of  rat  taking  the  place 
of  another  species  under  the  most  different  climates  ! 
In  Russia,  the  small,  Asiatic  cockroach  has  every- 
where driven  before  it  its  great  congener.  In  Aus- 
tralia, the  imported  hive-bee  is  rapidly  exterminating 
the  small,  stingless,  native  bee.  One  species  of  char- 
lock has  been  known  to  supplant  another  species ; 
and  so  in  other  cases.  We  can  dimly  see  why  com- 
petition should  be  most  severe  between  allied  forms 
which  fill  nearly  the  same  place  in  the  economy  of 
nature  ;  but  probably  in  no  one  case  could  we  pre- 
cisely say  why  one  species  had  been  victorious  over 
another  in  the  great  battle  of  life." ' 

Variations  and  the  Formation  of  Fossiliferous  Deposits. 

Then  again,  it  must  be  observed  that  it  is  not 
probable  that  variation  has  been  going  on  at  a  uniform 
rate  during  the  long  course  of  the  life-history  of  the 
earth.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  more  likely  that  long 
periods  of  stability  have  alternated  with  brief  periods 
of  disturbance  of  greater  or  less  extent.  During  the 
former  periods  specific  forms  would  experience  com- 
paratively little  change,  whereas,  during  the  latter, 
variations  would  rapidly  accumulate  and  be  strongly 

*  "The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  I,  pp.  93  and  94. 


OBJB C TIONS  A  GA TNS  T  B  VOL  UTION.    1 65 

accentuated.  Such  being  the  case,  the  number  of 
gradational  forms  will  be  far  less  numerous  than  the 
forms  contained  in  the  species  which  persist  with 
little  or  no  modifications  during  long  cycles  of  time. 
Furthermore,  it  is  now  generally  admitted  that 
the  strata  which  are  richest  in  fossils  were  usually,  if 
not  always,  deposited  during  eras  which  were  least 
favorable  for  the  development  of  transitional  forms, 
that  is,  during  eras  when  variation  and  extinction 
were  least  rapid.  On  the  theory  that  natural  selec- 
tion has  been  the  dominant  factor  in  Evolution  ;  on 
the  theory,  namely,  that  progress  has  resulted  solely, 
or  at  least  chiefly,  in  consequence  of  the  accumula- 
tion of  infinitesimal  increments,  a  condition  of  things 
must  have  existed  during  the  formation  of  fossilifer- 
ous  strata,  which  it  is  certain  could  have  obtained 
only  at  extremely  rare  intervals.  For,  as  Darwin 
points  out :  "  In  order  to  get  a  perfect  gradation  be- 
tween two  forms  in  the  upper  and  lower  parts  of  the 
same  formation,  the  deposit  must  have  gone  on  con- 
tinuously accumulating  during  a  long  period  suffi- 
cient for  the  slow  process  of  modification ;  hence 
the  deposit  must  be  a  very  thick  one,  and  the  spe- 
cies undergoing  change  must  have  lived  in  the  same 
districts  throughout  the  whole  time.  But  we  have 
seen  that  a  thick  formation,  fossiliferous  throughout 
its  entire  thickness,  can  accumulate  only  during  a 
period  of  subsidence  ;  and  to  keep  the  depth  approxi- 
mately the  same,  which  is  necessary  that  the  same 
marine  species  may  live  on  the  same  space,  the  sup- 
ply of  sediment  must  nearly  counterbalance  the 
amount  of  subsidence.     But  this  same  movement  of 


166  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

subsidence  will  tend  to  submerge  the  area  whence 
the  sediment  is  derived,  and  thus  diminish  the  sup- 
ply whilst  the  downward  movement  continues.  In 
fact,  this  nearly  exact  balancing  between  the  supply 
of  sediment  and  the  amount  of  subsidence  is  prob- 
ably a  rare  contingency  ;  for,  it  has  been  observed 
by  more  than  one  paleontologist,  that  very  thick  de- 
posits are  generally  barren  of  organic  remains,  except 
near  their  upper  or  lower  limits."  ' 

The  foregoing  are  but  a  few  of  the  reasons  that 
might  be  assigned  for  the  paucity  of  intermediate 
forms  which  characterizes  the  earth's  fossil-bearing 
strata.  When  we  come  to  reflect  on  the  matter, 
however,  the  wonder  is  not  that  there  is  such  a  small 
number  of  gradational  forms,  but  rather  that  there 
are  any  fossils  at  all.  For  everything  has  tended  to 
render  their  formation  impossible ;  and  in  the  com- 
paratively few  instances  in  which  circumstances  have 
been  favorable  to  the  fossilization  of  animal  or  vege- 
table forms,  a  variety  of  circumstances  has  intervened 
to  compass  their  destruction.  Such  being  the  case, 
therefore,  we  should  be  surprised,  not  at  the  exist- 
ence of  such  extensive  tracts  that  are  utterly  devoid 
of  any  traces  of  organic  life,  but  rather  at  the  fact 
that  there  are  so  many  formations  in  different  parts 
of  the  world  which  contain  such  a  wealth  of  fossil 
remains. 

For  let  us  consider  for  a  moment  under  what  ad- 
verse conditions  the  slight  vestiges  of  the  fauna  and 
flora  of  the  ancient  world  have  been  preserved  ; 
what  are  a  few  of  the  agents  of  destruction,  how 

*  Op.  cit.,  vol.  II.  pp.  68  and  69. 


OByECTIONS  A  GAINST  E  VOL  UTION.    1 67 

continuous  their  action,  and  how  inevitable  their  ef- 
fect. We  shall  then  learn  that  evolutionists  have 
reason  for  insisting  so  strongly  on  the  imperfection 
of  the  geological  record,  and  for  appealing  to  the  re- 
sults of  future  research  and  discovery  for  a  confirma- 
tion of  certain  facts  of  their  theory,  and  for  an  ex- 
planation of  certain  difficulties  which,  as  matters  now 
stand,  are  admittedly  insoluble. 

As  to  the  formation  of  fossils,  it  is,  as  is  well 
known,  only  the  hard  portions  of  organisms  which 
are  ever  fossilized.  But  even  these,  as  well  as  the 
softer  parts,  soon  suffer  disintegration  unless  in  some 
way  screened  from  sub-aerial  agencies  competent  to 
decompose  them,  and  unless  they  are  protected  from 
the  solvent  action  of  salt  water,  or  fresh  water  hold- 
ing carbonic  acid  in  solution. 

Again,  as  Darwin  remarks,  ''  we  probably  take  a 
quite  erroneous  view,  when  we  assume  that  the 
sediment  is  being  deposited  over  nearly  the  whole 
bed  of  the  sea  at  a  rate  sufficiently  thick  to  embed 
and  preserve  fossil  remains.  Throughout  an  enor- 
mously large  proportion  of  the  ocean,  the  bright 
blue  tint  of  the  water  bespeaks  its  purity.  The 
many  cases  on  record  of  a  formation  conformably 
covered,  after  an  immense  interval  of  time,  by  an- 
other and  later  formation,  without  the  underlying 
bed  having  suffered  in  the  interval  any  wear  and 
tear,  seem  explicable  only  on  the  view  of  the  bottom 
of  the  sea  not  rarely  lying  for  ages*  in  an  unaltered 
condition."  '  "  In  regard  to  the  mammiferous  re- 
mains," the  same  authority  continues,  "a  glance  at 

*Op.  cit.,  vol.  II,  p.  5S. 


168  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  historical  table  published  in  Lyell's  *  Manual* 
will  bring  home  the  truth,  how  accidental  and  rare  is 
their  preservation,  far  better  than  .pages  of  detail. 
Nor  is  their  rarity  surprising  when  we  consider  how 
large  a  proportion  of  the  bones  of  Tertiary  mammals 
have  been  discovered  either  in  caves  or  in  lacustrine 
deposits ;  and  that  not  a  cave  or  true  lacustrine 
bed  is  known  belonging  to  the  age  of  our  secondary 
or  Palaeozoic  formations."' 

But  if  the  formation  of  fossils  be  rare  and  some- 
thing wholly  exceptional,  when  we  consider  the 
myriad  organisms  which  are  never  fossilized  ;  if 
shells  and  bones  are  always  disintegrated  unless 
adequately  protected  from  the  countless  unfavorable 
and  destructive  agencies  to  which  they  are  exposed, 
their  preservation,  after  having  been  formed,  is 
something  which,  when  the  facts  of  the  case  are 
known,  must  appear  even  more  remarkable. 

Romanes   on  Difficulties   Attending  Preservation   of  Fossils. 

Mr.  George  Romanes,  Darwin's  favorite  and  most 
ardent  disciple,  has  so  accurately  and  picturesquely 
described  the  divers  agencies  which  contribute  to 
the  annihilation  of  fossil  forms,  that  I  need  make  no 
apology  for  quoting  him  at  length. 

"  But  of  even  more  importance,"  he  writes,  "than 
this  difficulty  of  making  fossils  in  the  first  instance,  is 
the  difficulty  of  preserving  them  when  they  are 
made.  The  vast  majority  of  fossils  have  been 
formed  under  water,  and  a  large  proportional  num- 
ber of  these,  whether  the  animals  were  marine,  ter- 

'  Ibid,  pp.  59  and  60. 


OBJECTIONS  A GA INS T  E VOL UTION    169 

restrial,  or  inhabitants  of  fresh  water,  have  been 
formed  in  sedimentary  deposits  either  of  sand, 
gravel  or  other  porous  material.  Now,  where  such 
deposits  have  been  afterwards  raised  into  the  air 
for  any  considerable  time,  and  this  has  been  more 
or  less  the  case  with  all  deposits  which  are  avail- 
able for  exploration,  their  fossiliferous  contents  will 
have  been,  as  a  general  rule,  dissolved  by  the  per- 
colation of  rain-water  charged  with  carbonic  acid. 
Similarly,  sea-water  has  recently  been  found  to  be 
a  surprisingly  strong  solvent  of  calcareous  material ; 
hence,  Saturn-like,  the  ocean  destroys  its  own  prog- 
eny as  far  as  shells  and  bones  of  all  kinds  are  con- 
cerned, and  this  to  an  extent  of  which  we  have 
probably  no  adequate  conception. 

"  Of  still  greater  destructive  influence,  however, 
than  these  solvent  agencies  in  earth  and  sea,  are  the 
erosive  agencies  of  both.  Anyone  who  watches 
the  pounding  of  the  waves  upon  the  shore ;  who 
then  observes  the  effect  of  it  upon  the  rocks  broken 
into  shingle,  and  on  the  shingle  reduced  to  sand  ; 
who,  looking  behind  him  at  the  clifTs,  sees  there  evi- 
dence of  the  advance  of  this  all-pulverizing  power — an 
advance  so  gradual  that  no  yard  of  it  is  accomplished 
until  within  that  yard  the  *  white  teeth '  have  eaten 
well  into  the  '  bowels  of  the  earth  ; '  who  then  reflects 
that  this  process  is  going  on  simultaneously  over 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  miles  of  coast-lines  through- 
out the  world  ;  and  who  finally  extends  his  mental 
vision  from  space  to  time,  by  trying  dimly  to  im- 
agine what  this  ever-roaring  monster  must  have 
consumed  during  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  years 


170  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

that  slowly  rising  and  slowly  sinking  continents  have 
exposed  their  whole  areas  to  her  jaws  ;  whoever 
thus  observes  and  thus  reflects  must  be  a  dull  man,  if 
he  does  not  begin  to  feel  that  in  the  presence  of 
such  a  destroyer  as  this  we  have  no  reason  to  wonder 
at  a  frequent  silence  in  the  testimony  of  the  rocks. 
"  But  although  the  erosive  agency  of  the  sea  is 
thus  so  inconceivably  great,  it  is  positively  small  as 
compared  with  erosive  agencies  on  land.  The  con- 
stant action  of  rain,  wind  and  running  water,  in 
wearing  down  the  surfaces  of  all  lands  into  *  the 
dust  of  continents  to  be  ; '  the  disintegrating  effects 
on  all  but  the  hardest  rocks  of  winter  frosts  alter- 
nating with  summer  heats  ;  the  grinding  power  of 
ice  in  periods  of  glaciation,  and  last,  but  not  least, 
the  wholesale  melting  up  of  sedimentary  forma- 
tions whenever  these  have  sunk  any  considerable 
distance  beneath  the  earth's  surface  —  all  these 
agencies  taken  together  constitute  so  prodigious 
a  sum  of  energies,  combined  through  immeasurable 
ages  in  their  common  work  of  destruction,  that 
when  we  try  to  realize  what  it  must  amount  to, 
we  can  scarcely  fail  to  wonder,  not  that  the  geolog- 
ical record  is  highly  imperfect,  but  that  so  much  of 
the  record  has  survived  as  we  find  to  have  been  the 
case.  And,  if  we  add  to  these  erosive  and  solvent 
agencies  on  land  the  erosive  and  solvent  agencies  of 
the  sea,  we  almost  begin  to  wonder  that  anything 
deserving  the  name  of  geological  record  is  in  exist- 
ence at  all."' 


' "  Darwin  and  After  Darwin,"  vol.  I,  pp.  423-425.     For  an 
exhaustive  discussion  of  the  disintegrating  and  destructive  ef- 


OBJE C TIONS  A GA TNS T  EVOLU TION.     1 71 

That  the  effects  of  denudation  are  not  exag- 
gerated in  the  preceding  quotation,  is  manifest  from 
a  number  of  facts  to  which  Darwin  has  directed  at- 
tention, and  of  which  he  was  the  first  to  realize  the 
true  import  in  their  bearings  on  Evolution.  In 
Europe,  but  especially  in  North  and  in  South  Amer- 
ica, there  are  immense  areas,  embracing  many  thou- 
sands of  square  miles,  in  which  the  surface  rocks  are 
entirely  granitic  or  metamorphic.  This  implies  that 
denudation  has  here  taken  place  on  a  tremendous 
scale.  And  the  utter  absence  of  fossils  in  such  rocks 
shows  conclusively  how  completely  the  work  of  de- 
struction was  accomplished,  so  completely,  indeed, 
that  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  remains  which 
must  have  originally  existed  in  these  portions  of  the 
earth  not  a  vestige  now  remains.  In  view  of  such 
facts  Darwin  considers  it  "quite  probable,  that  in 
some  parts  of  the  world  whole  formations  have 
been  completely  denuded,  with  not  a  wreck  left  be- 
hind." 

Small  Percentage  of  Fossil  Forms. 

But  this  is  not  all.  We  have  positive  evidence 
that  during  certain  periods  many  species  existed  in 
countless  numbers,  although,  so  far,  not  a  fragment 
of  bone  has  been  found  within  the  area  in  which 
they  once  flourished.  The  strange,  bird-like  forms 
that  once  inhabited  the  Connecticut  valley  are  in- 
stances in  point.     Although  more  than  a  score  of 


fects  of  aqueous,  glacial  and  igneous  agencies,  the  reader  may 
consult  with  profit  the  pages  of  Lyell's  admirable  "  Principles  of 
Geology." 


172  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

species  of  this  character  had  their  habitat  in  the 
district,  and  in  its  vicinity,  the  only  tangible  evidences 
which  we  yet  possess  that  they  ever  existed,  are  the 
tracks  and  foot-prints  which  they  left  in  the  shales 
and  sandstones  of  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey. 

In  other  cases,  again,  all  that  has  so  far  been 
discovered  of  what,  in  their  time,  were  manifestly 
important  species,  is  a  single  tooth,  or  a  single  bone, 
or  even  only  a  small  fragment  of  bone.  That  future 
research  will  disclose  remains  of  these  species,  in 
larger  quantities  or  in  greater  numbers,  there  is 
reason  to  believe,  but  however  rich  the  finds  may 
be,  it  will  always  be  true  that  the  fossils  which  have 
been  preserved  are  but  an  insignificant  portion  of 
those  which  were  actually  formed,  and  that  the  re- 
mains of  organisms  which  were  fossilized  were  but  an 
infinitesimal  part  of  those  which  were  completely 
destroyed  before  fossilization  was  possible. 

Darwin's  observations  on  sessile  cirripeds  corrob- 
orate in  the  most  striking  manner  what  has  been 
stated  in  the  preceding  paragraphs,  and  show  how 
a  large  group  of  animals,  represented  by  an  extraor- 
dinary number  of  individuals  all  over  the  world,  in 
every  latitude  and  "  inhabiting  various  zones  of 
depths  from  the  upper  tidal  limit  to  fifty  fathoms," 
may  fail  to  leave  even  a  trace  of  their  existence  during 
long  geological  periods.  "  Not  long  ago,  paleontolo- 
gists maintained  that  the  whole  class  of  birds  came 
suddenly  into  existence  during  the  Eocene  Period  ; 
but  now  we  know,  on  the  authority  of  Prof.  Owen, 
that  a  bird  certainly  lived  during  the  Upper  Green- 
sand  ;  and  still  more  recently  that  strange  bird,  the 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.    173 

archaeopteryx,  with  a  long  lizard-like  tail  bearing  a 
pair  of  feathers  on  each  joint,  and  with  its  wings 
furnished  with  two  free  claws,  has  been  discovered 
in  the  Oolitic  slates  of  Solenhofen.  Hardly  any 
recent  discovery  shows  more  forcibly  than  this  how 
little  we  as  yet  know  of  the  former  inhabitants  of 
the  world."' 

Another  important  fact  we  should  not  lose  sight 
of  is,  that  as  yet  but  a  comparatively  small  portion 
of  the  earth  has  been  explored  by  geologists.  The 
formations  of  the  earth  in  North  America  are  fairly 
well  known,  but  even  in  these  portions  of  the  world 
there  is  still  much  to  be  learned.  As  to  South 
America,  Asia,  Africa,  Australia,  they  are  for  the 
most  part  terr(e  incognitcB  to  the  paleontologist. 
Such  being  the  case  it  were  foolish  in  the  extreme  to 
dogmatize  on  the  sequence  of  organic  forms  in  past 
geologic  time,  or  to  attempt  to  base  an  argument 
against  Evolution  on  the  absence  of  certain  transi- 
tional types  and  on  the  consequent  imperfection  of 
the  record  so  far  at  our  disposal. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  not  so  much  as  one 
per  cent.,  of  the  countless  species  of  animals  which 
have  flourished  since  the  first  dawn  of  life,  has  left 
the  slightest  trace  of  its  past  existence.  Marine 
forms,  as  might  be  expected,  are  better  represented 
than  land  forms.  Indeed  there  are  not  wanting 
those  who  assert,  that  of  terrestrial  types  not  more 
than  one  species  in  a  thousand  is  represented  by 
known  fossils. 


"  The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  II,  pp.  79  and  80. 


174'  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Extraordinary  Intercalary  Forms. 

But  in  spite  of  the  rarity  of  fossils  in  comparison 
with  the  almost  infinite  number  of  individuals  repre- 
sented ;  in  spite  of  the  paucity  of  fossil  species  as 
compared  with  the  total  number  which  must  have 
existed  since  the  advent  of  life ;  in  spite  of  the  lim- 
ited area  of  the  earth  which  has  so  far  been  ex- 
plored by  the  paleontologist,  there  are,  as  indicated 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  many  examples  of  inter- 
calary forms  of  the  most  extraordinary  character. 
And  all  the  instances  adduced,  be  it  remembered, 
constitute  so  much  positive  evidence  in  behalf  of 
the  theory  of  organic  Evolution.  The  absence  of 
transitional  varieties  in  certain  formations  is,  at  best, 
but  negative  evidence,  and  such  evidence  is  of  but 
little  value,  or  rather  it  is  of  no  value,  in  face  of  all 
the  positive  evidence  which  recent  research  has 
brought  to  light.  Thanks  to  the  discoveries  of 
Gaudry,  Marsh,  Cope  and  others,  the  number  of 
intermediate  forms  has,  within  the  past  few  years, 
been  wonderfully  augmented,  and  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  future  exploration  will,  in  like 
manner,  contribute  towards  filling  up  many  of  the 
lacunae  which  at  present  are  pointed  to  as  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  yielding  rational  assent  to  the  current 
theory  of  transformism. 

**  Indeed,  it  may  be  asserted,"  Prof.  Fiske  truth- 
fully observes,  "  cis  one  of  the  most  significant  truths 
of  paleontology,  that  extinct  forms  are  almost  al- 
ways intercalary  between  forms  now  existing.  Not 
only  species,  genera  and  families,  but  even  orders  of 


OBJB C TIONS  A GA INS T  BVOLV TION.    1 75 

contemporary  animals,  apparently  quite  distinct,  are 
now  and  then  fused  together  by  the  discovery  of 
extinct  intermediary  forms.  In  Cuvier's  time,  horse, 
tapir,  pig  and  rhinoceros  were  ranked  as  a  distinct 
order  from  cow,  sheep,  deer,  buffalo  and  camel. 
But  so  many  transitional  forms  have  been  found 
in  Tertiary  strata,  that  pachyderms  and  ruminants 
are  now  united  in  a  single  order.  By  numerous 
connecting  links  the  pig  is  now  seen  to  be  closely 
united  with  the  camel  and  the  antelope.  Similar 
results  relating  to  the  proboscidians,  the  hyena 
family  of  carnivora,  the  apes,  the  horse  and  the  rhi- 
noceros, have  been  obtained  from  the  exploration 
of  a  single  locality  near  Mount  Pentelicus  in  Greece. 
Among  more  than  seventy  species  there  discov- 
ered, the  gradational  arrangement  of  forms  was  so 
strongly  marked,  that  the  great  paleontologist,  M. 
Gaudry,  became  a  convert  to  Mr.  Darwin's  theory 
in  the  course  of  the  search."  *  Indeed,  so  much  was 
M.  Gaudry,  who  renews  in  our  own  day  the  tri- 
umphs of  Cuvier  in  paleontology,  impressed  by 
the  fossil  remains  of  Greece  and  the  transitional 
forms  of  other  lands,  that  he  did  not  hesitate  thirty 
years  ago  to  declare,  that  "  the  more  we  advance  and 
fill  up  the  gaps,  the  more  we  feel  persuaded  that 
the  remaining  voids  exist  more  in  our  knowledge 
than  in  nature.  A  few  blows  of  the  pick-axe  at  the 
foot  of  the  Pyrenees,  of  the  Himalayas,  of  Mount 
Pentelicus ;  a  few  diggings  in  the  sand-pits  of  Ep- 
pelsheim  or  in  the  Mauvaises  Terres  of  Nebraska, 
have    revealed   to    us   the   closest  connecting  links 

^  "  Cosmic  Philosophj',"  vol.  II,  pp.  40  and  41. 


176  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

between  forms  which  seemed  before  so  widely  sepa- 
rated. How  much  closer  will  these  links  be  drawn 
when  paleontology  shall  have  escaped  from  its 
cradle." ' 

Imperfection  of  the  Geological  Record. 

What  precedes  supplies  us  with  an  answer  re- 
garding two  great  difficulties  on  which  anti-evolu- 
tionists have  always  laid  special  stress.  These 
difficulties,  briefly  stated,  are  the  sudden  apparition 
of  whole  groups  of  allied  species  in  certain  forma- 
tions, even  in  the  lowest  fossiliferous  strata,  with- 
out any  previous  transitional  forms  leading  up  to 
such  groups,  and  the  occurrence  in  geological  time 
of  numerous  animal  forms  of  a  much  higher 
grade  than  an  evolutionist  should  antecedently  ex- 
pect. 

From  what  has  already  been  said  not  only  respect- 
ing the  absence  of  countless  species,  but  also  of  the  de- 
nudation of  immense  areas  which  must  at  one  time 
have  been  rich  in  important  fossiliferous  deposits,  it  is 
manifest  that  the  objection  is  at  best  but  a  neutral 
one,  and  as  such  may  be  dismissed  as  in  nowise  se- 
riously affecting  the  contention  of  evolutionists.  Re- 
garding the  appearance  in  the  earlier  strata  of  ani- 
mals which  are  zoologically  of  a  higher  grade  than 
the  principles  of  Evolution  would  lead  one  to  look 
for,  it  may  be  said  in  reply  that  the  objection  urged 
proves,  at  most,  that  the  imperfection  of  the  geolog- 
ical record  is  even  more  extensive  than  it  has  usually 
been  thought  to  be,  and,  likewise,  that  the  advent  of 


"  Les  Animaux  Fossiles  de  Pikermi,"  p.  34. 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.     Vll 

life  on  the  earth  must  date  back  much  farther  than  is 
commonly  thought.  Not  long  since,  it  was  the  gen- 
eral opinion,  that  the  first  living  organisms  had  their 
origin  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  Silurian  Age,  but 
since  then  the  Cambrian,  the  Huronian,  and  the 
Laurentian  formations  have  been  discovered,  the 
united  thickness  of  which,  according  to  the  eminent 
geologist.  Sir  W.  Logan,  "  may  possibly  far  surpass 
that  of  all  the  succeeding  rocks  from  the  base  of  the 
Palaeozoic  series  to  the  present  time,"  and  may, 
therefore,  carry  us  back  to  a  period  so  remote,  that 
the  oldest  Silurian  fauna  may  in  comparison  be  re- 
garded as  comparatively  modern.  So  far  as  the  in- 
formation of  paleontologists  now  extends,  Eozoon 
Canadense,  found  even  in  the  lowest  deposits  of  the 
Laurentian,  was  the  earliest  form  of  life,  but  it  is  not 
impossible  that  in  yet  lower  strata,  beneath  the 
ocean's  floor  perhaps,  there  are  still  more  primitive 
types  which  as  much  antedate  the  time  of  Eozoon 
Canadense,  as  it  antedates  the  advent  of  the  last 
highest  vertebrate. 

Time,  Change  and  Equilibrium. 

But,  it  will  be  objected  that  the  existence  of  such 
formations  implies  far  more  time  than  geologists  can 
reasonably  claim,  far  more  than  can  be  allowed  by 
the  almost  certain  conclusions  of  thermodynamics 
and  astronomical  physics.  In  reply  it  will  suf- 
fice to  observe,  that  much,  very  much,  yet  remains  to 
be  learned,  concerning  the  time  which  has  elapsed 
since  the  earth  became  a  fit  abode  for  the  lower 
forms  of  life,  and  that  until  physicists,  astronomers 


l78  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

and  mathematicians  can  agree  among  themselves,  as 
to  the  data  on  which  they  base  their  calculations,  and 
until  they  can  furnish  more  satisfactory  results  than 
they  have  hitherto  offered,  geologists  will  be  quite 
within  their  right  in  regarding  the  objections  urged 
as  negative  or  indifferent. 

In  all  discussions  relating  to  the  ascent  of  life  and 
the  paucity  of  transitional  forms,  we  should  not  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  ours  is  a  period  of  tranquility, 
and  that,  therefore,  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
of  Evolution,  there  should  now  be  fewer  changes  in 
the  fauna  and  flora  of  the  earth  than  during  periods 
of  change  and  widely-extended  disturbance.  But 
the  earth  has  not  always  been  so  stable  and  tranquil. 
During  the  inconceivably  long  interval  which  has 
elapsed  since  the  first  beginnings  of  life  on  our  globe, 
there  have  been  countless  periods  of  equilibrium 
alternating  with  changes  which  were  more  or  less 
paroxysmal.  The  last  of  these  critical  epochs  was 
during  that  long  stretch  of  time,  known  as  the  Gla- 
cial Period,  when  ice  and  snow  reigned  supreme  over 
a  great  portion  of  Europe  and  North  America.  And 
during  these  long  geologic  rhythms,  these  alterna- 
tions of  upheaval  and  subsidence,  of  denudation  and 
sedimentation,  during  these  periods  of  comparative 
tranquility  and  almost  cataclysmal  mutation,  there 
were  alternately  periods  which  in  the  one  case  fa- 
vored the  permanence  of  species,  and  in  the  other 
were  conducive  to  their  rapid  metamorphosis,  and  to 
the  speedy  production  of  intercalary  forms  which 
connected  all  the  links  of  living  organisms  in  one 
grand  unbroken  chain. 


OBJB  C  TiONS  A  GA  INS  T  B  VOL  V  TION.    1 79 

Paleontology  Compared  with  Egyptology  and  Assyriology. 

The  work  of  the  paleontologist  resembles  in  great 
measure  the  work  of  those  who,  from  fragmentary 
and  unpromising  materials,  have  revived  for  us  the 
histories,  so  long  buried  in  oblivion,  of  those  great 
nations  of  the  Orient  which  erstwhile  flourished 
amid  such  splendor  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  the 
Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century  the  history  of  Egypt  was  almost  a 
sealed  book,  and  as  to  Chaldea,  Assyria  and  Baby- 
lonia, it  could  be  affirmed,  and  with  truth,  scarcely 
yet  a  generation  ago,  that  many  of  the  most  impor- 
tant features  of  their  respective  histories  had  little 
more  for  a  basis  than  myth  and  conjecture.  But 
thanks  to  the  labors  and  discoveries  of  Champollion, 
Lassen,  Burnouf,  Rawlinson,  Layard,  George  Smith, 
Mariette,  Maspero,  and  their  compeers,  the  myste- 
rious hieroglyphics  and  curious  cuneiform  characters 
have  been  deciphered,  and  the  treasures  of  knowledge 
so  long  concealed  by  them  have  been  opened  up  to 
the  world.  In  Egypt,  temples  and  tombs  have  been 
searched  for  records  bearing  on  the  past.  Pyramids 
and  obelisks,  sphinxes  and  cartouches,  have  been 
carefully  scrutinized  and  compelled  to  give  up  their 
secrets  to  the  persistent  and  determined  votaries  of 
history  and  science.  And  so,  too,  it  has  been  in 
Mesopotamia  and  in  the  territory  adjacent.  From 
the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  site  of  ancient  Nineveh, 
from  Tyre  and  Sidon  to  glorious  Palmyra,  the  pick 
and  the  spade  of  the  archaeologist  have  been  busy, 
especially  during  the  past  four  decades,  and  the 
result  has  been  that  we  now  have  more  complete  and 


180  EVOLU TION  A ND  D OGMA . 

more  accurate  information  respecting  peoples  who 
lived  four  and  five  thousand  years  ago,  than  we  have 
in  regard  to  the  inhabitants  of  many  of  the  most 
powerful  nations  of  Europe  during  periods  which 
carry  us  back  but  a  few  hundred  years.  Rolls  of 
papyrus  and  mummy  cases,  tablets  and  cylinders, 
which  were  once  but  so  many  meaningless  objects  for 
the  curious,  have  been  converted  into  trustworthy 
records  regarding  an  almost  forgotten  past.  Seti  and 
Rameses,  Sennacherib  and  Assurbanipal  live  again, 
and  in  all  their  salient  features  they  come  before  us 
with  fully  as  much  distinctness  as  do  the  historic 
and  romantic  figures  of  Charlemagne  and  Coeur  de 
Lion. 

Thus,  likewise,  is  it  in  respect  of  paleontology. 
Thanks  to  the  discoveries  and  labors  of  Cuvier,  Smith, 
Sedgwick,  Hugh  Miller,  Murchison,  Hall,  Barrande, 
Gaudry,  Marsh,  and  a  host  of  other  successful  students 
of  nature,  who  have  consecrated  their  lives  to  the 
work  of  collecting  and  coordinating  the  testimony  of 
the  rocks,  we  have  now  light  where  before  all  was 
darkness ;  we  have  knowledge  where  all  was  mystery. 
And  though  paleontology,  like  Egyptology  and  As- 
syriology,  is  still  in  its  infancy,  it  has,  nevertheless, 
already  achieved  marvels.  From  a  few  scattered 
fragments,  the  disjecta  membra  of  organisms  long 
since  extinct,  it  has  constructed  for  us  a  history  which 
embraces  periods  of  such  duration,  that  in  compari- 
son with  them  the  long  dynasties  of  the  Pharaohs 
sink  into  positive  insignificance.  It  tells  us  the  story 
of  life  from  its  humblest  beginnings  till  the  advent 
of  man,  the  paragon  of  God's  visible  universe.     It 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.     181 

shows  us  the  grand  unity  of  plan  which  has  character- 
ized the  fauna  and  flora  of  the  world,  and  exhibits  to 
our  view  the  direction  Evolution  must  have  taken  in 
its  progress  from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  from 
the  general  to  the  special,  from  the  primitive  monad 
to  the  highest  vertebrate.  Like  the  records  of  the 
Egyptologist  and  the  Assyriologist,  those  of  the 
student  of  the  past  history  of  the  earth  have  been 
imperfect  and  fragmentary  in  the  extreme,  but,  not- 
withstanding this,  and  notwithstanding  the  enormous 
gaps  which  are  everywhere  discernible,  the  paleontol- 
ogist  has  been  able  to  give  us  an  account  which, 
considering  the  difificulties  under  which  it  has  been 
written,  all  thoughtful  minds  must  recognize  as 
singularly  complete  and  satisfactory,  even  in  many 
of  its  details. 

Darwin,  in  closing  \\%  interesting  chapter  on  the 
imperfection  of  the  geological  record,  makes  a  com- 
parison which  so  beautifully  illustrates  the  character 
of  the  materials  from  which  the  paleontologist  must 
weave  his  story  of  the  earth  and  its  former  inhabi- 
tants, that  I  reproduce  it  here  in  his  own  words: 
"  For  my  part,  following  Lyell's  metaphor,  I  look  at 
the  geological  record  as  the  history  of  the  world,  im- 
perfectly kept  and  written  in  a  changing  dialect.  Of 
this  history  we  possess  the  last  volume  alone,  relating 
only  to  two  or  three  countries.  Of  this  volume,  only 
here  and  there  a  short  chapter  has  been  preserved ; 
and  of  each  page,  only  here  and  there  a  few  lines. 
Each  word  of  the  slowly-changing  language,  more  or 
less  different  in  the  successive  chapters,  may  repre- 
sent the  forms  of  life,  which  are  entombed  in  our 


182  EVOLUTIOX  AND  DOGMA. 

consecutive  formations,  and  which  falsely  appear  to 
have  been  abruptly  introduced.  On  this  view  the 
difficulties  above  discussed  are  greatly  diminished,  or 
even  disappear."  ' 

Sterility  of  Species  when  Crossed. 

The  third  objection  against  Evolution,  the  last  one 
we  shall  consider,  is  based  on  the  sterility  of  species 
when  crossed  and  on  the  infertility  of  hybrids.  The 
argument  as  usually  advanced  appears  well-founded, 
and  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  not  without  its  difficulties. 

According  to  anti-evolutionists  species  have  been 
rendered  barren  by  a  special  provision  of  nature,  in 
order  thereby  to  prevent  confusion  which  would 
result  from  intercrossing.  So  convinced,  indeed, 
was  Frederick  Cuvier,  the  brother  of  the  illustrious 
paleontologist,  of  this  view,  that  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  declare:  "Without  the  employment  of  artificial 
means  or  without  derogation  to  the  laws  of  Provi- 
dence, the  existence  of  hybrids  would  never  have 
been  known."  And  Dufr^noy  affirmed  that  "animals 
instinctively  mate  with  individuals  of  their  own 
species  only,  and  avoid  those  of  others,  as  they 
instinctively  select  food  and  eschew  poison." 

"In  fact,"  writes  De  Quatrefages, who  to  the  day 
of  his  death  was  opposed  to  the  transmutation 
theory,  "  if  in  the  organized  world  there  exists  any- 
thing which  ought  to  strike  the  superficial  observer, 
it  is  the  order  and  constancy  which  we  see  there 
reigning  during  the  past  ages;  it  is  the  distinction 
which  is  maintained  among  those  groups  of  beings 

»  "The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  II,  p.  88. 


OBJECTTONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.    183 

which  Darwin  and  Lamarck,  like  ourselves,  call 
species,  even  when  in  general  form,  function,  instinct 
and  habit,  they  resemble  one  another  so  closely 
that  their  discrimination  is  a  matter  of  difficulty. 
Certainly  the  cause  which  maintains  this  order,  this 
constancy  over  the  entire  surface  of  the  globe,  is  of 
far  greater  importance  than  any  mere  particularity 
affecting  individual  life,  or  the  simple  local  existence 
of  a  domestic  race. 

"  Now,  this  cause  is  simple  and  unique.  Suppress 
infecundity  among  different  species;  suppose  that 
the  unions  among  wild  species  were  to  become  in 
every  way  fertile,  and  indefinitely  so,  as  they  are  in 
our  dove-cotes,  cow-houses  and  dog-kennels  among 
domestic  races.  And  instantly  what  comes  to  pass? 
Barriers  separating  species  and  genera  are  taken 
away ;  crosses  are  effected  in  all  directions ;  every, 
where  intermediate  types  make  their  appearance, 
and  everywhere  existing  distinctions  are  gradually 
effaced.  As  for  myself,  I  cannot  see  where  the  con- 
fusion would  end.  Entire  orders  and  probably  even 
classes  would,  after  a  few  generations,  present  noth- 
ing but  a  group  of  bastard  forms  of  doubtful  charac- 
ters, irregularly  allied  and  intercrossed,  among  which 
disorder  would  go  on  increasing,  thanks  to  the  mix- 
ture rendered  more  and  more  complete,  and  thanks 
to  atavism  which  would  doubtless  struggle  for  a  long 
time  with  direct  heredity.  This  is  not  an  imaginary 
picture.  Every  reader,  when  asked  what  will  be 
produced  by  promiscuous  unions  among  the  one- 
hundred-and-fifty  races  of  pigeons  recognized  by 
Darwin,   and    the    one-hundred-and-eighty  races   of 


184  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

dogs  shown  at  our  expositions,  will  certainly  give 
the  same  answer  as  I  do. 

"  Infertility  among  species,  therefore,  has,  in  the 
organic  world,  a  role  which  is  almost  analogous  to 
gravitation  in  the  sidereal  world.  It  preserves  the 
zoological  or  botanical  distance  among  species,  as 
attraction  maintains  the  physical  distances  among 
the  stars.  Both  have  their  perturbations,  their  un- 
explained phenomena.  But,  has  anyone  called  in 
question  the  great  fact  which  fixes  in  their  respective 
places  both  satellites  and  suns?  No.  And  can  one, 
on  this  account,  deny  the  fact  which  assures  the  sep- 
aration of  species  the  most  closely  allied,  as  well  as 
of  groups  the  most  widely  separated?  By  no  means. 
In  astronomy  we  should  reject  incontinently  every 
hypothesis  in  opposition  to  the  first.  And,  although 
the  complication  of  phenomena  is  much  greater  in 
botany  and  zoology,  serious  study  will  always  lead 
us  to  discard  all  doctrines  that  are  at  variance  with 
the  second." ' 

Infertility  among  distinct  species,  as  De  Quatre- 
fages  here  views  the  matter,  is  thus  seen  to  be  de- 
manded by  the  fitness  of  things.  It  is  required  for 
the  harmony  of  animated  nature,  and  is  rendered 
necessary  by  the  hopeless  confusion  which  would  re- 
sult if  such  infertility  did  not  exist. 

But  the  argument  from  infertility,  as  urged 
against  evolutionists,  has  even  greater  force  when 
regarded  from  another  point  of  view — I  mean  from 
the  standpoint  of  fact.  Evolution,  it  is  alleged,  is 
disproved,  not  because  it  seems  fit   and   necessary 

^"Darwin  et  ses  Precurseurs  Franjais,"  pp.  259  and  260. 


OBJECTIONS  J\ GAINST  EVOLUTION.    185 

that  species  should  be  reciprocally  sterile,  but  be- 
cause of  the  fact  of  in  fecundity  ;  because,  so  it  is 
said,  not  a  single  instance  can  be  cited  of  continued 
fertility  among  the  hybrid  offspring  of  any  two  spe- 
cies, however  closely  related.  Here  is  the  core  of 
the  difficulty, ''  le  fait,''  as  the  Marquis  de  Nadaillac 
phrases  it,  ^' qui  domine  toute  la  qiiestionr^  Evolu- 
tionists, say  their  opponents,  confound  species 
with  race,  assert  of  one  what  is  true  only  of  the 
other,  pile  hypothesis  upon  hypothesis,  and  ulti- 
mately deny  the  reality  of  species,  or  see  in  this 
fundamental  group  only  an  artificial  combina- 
tion. 

Morphological  and  Physiological  Species. 

As  is  evident,  we  are  here  again  confronted  with 
the  old  question  of  the  reality  and  permanence  of 
species.  And,  unfortunately,  most  of  the  reasoning 
one  is  asked  to  follow  on  the  subject  is  carried  on  in 
a  vicious  circle,  or  is  based  on  assumptions  which 
are  wholly  unwarranted.  What  is  species  ?  This  is  a 
question  which  again  comes  to  the  fore.  Morpho- 
logically, many  of  the  domesticated  pigeons,  of 
which  Darwin  makes  mention,  notably  the  pouter,  the 
tumbler,  the  fantail,  and  the  carrier,  are  so  unlike 


*  For  a  masterly  presentation  of  the  Marquis  de  Nadaillac's 
objections  against  Evolution,  see  his  "  Problemede  la  Vie,"  and 
•'  Le  Progres  de  1  'Anthropologie,"  in  the  Compte  Rendu  of 
the  International  Catholic  Scientific  Congress  at  Paris,  in  1891. 
For  a  critical  examination  of  his  views,  see  a  paper  on  "  Crea- 
tion et  fivolution,"  by  Dr.  Maisonneuve,  in  the  same  Compte 
Rendu,  Section  of  Anthropology,  as  also  a  paper  entitled,  "  Pour 
la  Theorie  des  Ancdtres  Communs,"  by  the  Abbe  Guillemet, 
in  the  Compte  Rendu  of  the  same  Congress,  held  at  Brussels 
in  1894. 


186  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

each  other  that  they  would  be  regarded  as  belong- 
ing not  only  to  different  species,  but  even  to  differ- 
ent genera,  did  we  not  know  that  they  are  all  de- 
scended from  the  ordinary  rock  pigeon,  Columbia 
livia.  For  these  birds,  Huxley  tells  us,  "  not  only 
differ  most  singularly  in  size,  color,  and  habit,  but  in 
the  form  of  the  beak  and  the  skull ;  in  the  number 
of  tail  feathers ;  the  absolute  and  relative  size  of  the 
feet ;  in  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  uropygial 
gland  ;  in  the  number  of  the  vertebrae  in  the  back ; 
in  short,  in  precisely  those  characters  in  which  the 
genera  and  species  of  birds  differ  from  one  another." 
And  so  it  is  with  the  different  races  of  dogs.  Whether 
they  are  all  originally  descended  from  one  or  more 
species  is  yet  a  moot  question,  although  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  most,  if  not  all  of  them,  are 
descended  from  the  wolf  and  the  jackal.  But  be 
this  as  it  may,  when  we  compare  the  divers  races  of 
the  domestic  dog,  when  we  observe  how  they  differ 
in  the  number  of  their  teeth,  toes  and  vertebrae,  and 
note  the  divergencies  in  the  form  and  disposition  of 
other  portions  of  the  body,  we  see  that  they  are  so 
unlike  that  if  found  in  a  state  of  nature  they  would 
unhesitatingly  be  pronounced  distinct  species.  Even 
Cuvier  was  forced  to  admit,  that  the  differences  in 
the  forms  of  the  skulls  of  certain  canine  races  are  so 
great,  as  to  justify  one  in  assigning  them  to  distinct 
genera. 

What  has  been  said  of  pigeons  and  dogs  may 
also,  in  great  measure,  be  iterated  in  respect  of  sun- 
dry races  of  fowls,  rabbits,  sheep  and  horses.  Mor- 
phologically their  differences  are  so    marked,  that 


OBJE C TIONS  A GA INS T  EVOLU TION.    187 

they  should  be  reckoned  not  only  as  distinct  species, 
but  also  as  distinct  genera,  but  because  they  are  fer- 
tile when  crossed  inter  se,  they  must  be  regarded,  anti- 
evolutionists  insist,  as  all  belonging  to  one  and  the 
same  species.  And  for  this  reason,  too,  we  are  told 
that  the  species  of  any  given  organism  is  to  be  de- 
termined, not  by  its  form,  but  by  its  filiation.  Ac- 
cording to  this  view,  therefore,  the  determining 
characteristic  of  species  is  not  something  morpholog- 
ical, as  Tournefort  opined,  but  rather  something,  as 
Ray  and  Flourens  taught,  which  is  physiological. 

But  even  physiological  species  is  not  the  con- 
stant quantity  it  is  represented  to  be  by  anti-trans- 
formists.  Infertility  of  species  and  of  their  hybrid 
progeny  does  not  constitute  the  positive  line  of 
demarcation,  so  often  claimed  by  the  advocates  of 
the  immutability  of  specific  forms.  On  the  con- 
trary, as  Darwin  and  others  have  shown,  "  neither 
sterility  nor  fertility  affords  any  certain  distinction 
between  species  and  varieties."  Long-continued 
experiments,  of  the  most  ingenious  character,  have 
demonstrated  beyond  question  that  sterility  in  ani- 
mals is  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  indelible  charac- 
teristic, but  as  one  capable  of  being  removed  by 
domestication.  And,  observations  on  numberless 
groups  of  plants  and  animals  have  disclosed  the 
remarkable  fact,  that  "  the  degree  of  fertility,  both 
of  first  crosses  and  of  hybrids,  graduates  from  zero 
to  perfect  fertility." 

From  the  foregoing,  then,  it  is  evinced  that  physi- 
ological species  present  as  many  and  as  grave  diffi- 
culties as  do  morphological  species.     If  it  be  true, 


188  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

as  is  so  often  contended,  that  species  have  been 
endowed  with  sterility  in  order  thereby  to  prevent 
their  becoming  confounded  in  nature,  why  is  it  that 
we  find  so  many  exceptions  to  what  is  said  to  be  an 
invariable  law?  "Why,"  asks  Darwin,  "should  the 
sterility  be  so  extremely  different  in  degree  when 
various  species  are  crossed,  all  of  which  we  must 
suppose  it  would  be  equally  important  to  keep  from 
blending  together?  Why  should  the  degree  of 
sterility  be  innately  variable  in  the  individuals  of 
the  same  species  ?  Why  should  some  species  cross 
with  facility,  and  yet  produce  very  sterile  hybrids ; 
and  other  species  cross  with  extreme  difficulty,  yet 
produce  fairly  fertile  hybrids?  Why  should  there 
often  be  so  great  a  difference  in  the  result  of  a  re- 
ciprocal  cross  between  the  same  two  species?  Why, 
it  may  even  be  asked,  has  the  production  of  hybrids 
been  permitted  ?  To  grant  to  species  the  special 
power  of  producing  hybrids,  and  then  to  stop  their 
further  propagation  by  different  degrees  of  sterility, 
not  strictly  related  to  the  facility  of  the  first  union 
between  their  parents,  seems  a  strange  arrange- 
ment." ' 

To  show  to  how  great  absurdities  a  too  strong 
insistence  on  physiological  species,  as  an  absolute 
criterion  as  to  what  is  a  true  species  and  what  is 
but  a  simple  variety,  may  sometimes  lead,  I  need 
only  refer  to  a  large  number  of  groups  of  flowers,  in 
which  individuals  of  a  given  species  can  be  more 
easily  fertilized  by  pollen  from  a  different  plant,  or 
even  by  the  pollen  of  a  different  species,  than  by 

'  "  The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  II,  p.  17. 


OBJB C TIONS  A GA INS T  BVOLU TION.    189 

their  own  pollen.  The  corydalis  cava  is  a  striking 
illustration  of  this  strange  phenomenon.  Accord- 
ing to  Hildebrand,  the  flowers  of  this  species  are 
absolutely  incapable  of  being  fecundated  by  their 
own  pollen,  and  are  rendered  but  imperfectly  fertile 
by  pollen  from  other  flowers  of  the  same  stem. 
They  are,  however,  always  perfectly  fecundated 
when  the  pollen  is  brought  from  a  flower  of  a  differ- 
ent stalk,  or  from  the  flower  of  a  closely  allied 
species.  In  this  case  we  are  absolutely  certain  that 
the  stamens  and  carpels  of  any  given  flower,  came 
from  the  same  seed  ;  that  they  have,  consequently, 
a  common  parentage.  Wherefore,  then,  their  ste- 
rility ;  and  why  is  it  that  the  carpel  of  the  given 
flower  can  be  perfectly  fecundated  only  by  pollen 
from  the  flower  of  an  independent  stem,  or  of  a  dif- 
ferent species?  The  only  answer  which  can  con- 
sistently be  given  by  anti-evolutionists,  who  pin 
their  faith  to  the  usually-accepted  definition  of 
physiological  species,  is  that  the  stamens  and  car- 
pels, not  only  of  the  different  flowers  of  the  same 
stem,  but  also  those  of  the  same  flower  of  the  given 
stalk,  belong  to  distinct  species,  and  that  only  the 
stamens  and  carpels  of  flowers  of  independent  plants, 
or  of  different  species,  belong  to  the  same  species. 
It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  observe  that  a  more 
perfect  reductio  ad  absurdum  can  hardly  be  im- 
agined. 

Strictly  speaking,  the  infertility  of  hybrids  is 
rather  an  objection  against  the  theory  of  natural 
selection  than  against  that  of  Evolution.  From 
what  is  known  of  the  extreme  sensitiveness  of  the 


190  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

reproductive  system  of  most  forms  of  life,  and  of  the 
intimate  dependence  of  this  system  on  the  organism 
to  which  it  belongs,  it  appears  a  priori  quite  natural 
that  species  or  races,  which  in  the  beginning  were 
reciprocally  fertile,  should,  in  the  course  of  time, 
owing  to  some  change  in  the  conditions  of  existence, 
or  to  protracted  subjection  to  different  sets  of  cir- 
cumstances, become  completely  infertile.  Many 
causes  have  been  assigned  for  this  infecundity,  but 
the  answers  given  are,  it  must  be  confessed,  far 
from  satisfactory.  "He  who  is  able,"  says  Darwin, 
"  to  explain  why  the  elephant,  and  a  multitude  of 
other  animals,  are  incapable  of  breeding  when  kept 
under  only  partial  confinement  in  their  native  coun- 
try, will  be  able  to  explain  the  primary  cause  of 
hybrids  being  so  generally  sterile.  He  will,  at  the 
same  time,  be  able  to  explain  how  it  is  that  the  races 
of  some  of  our  domesticated  animals,  which  have 
often  been  subjected  to  new,  and  not  uniform,  con- 
ditions, are  quite  fertile  together,  although  they  are 
descended  from  distinct  species  which  would  prob- 
ably have  been  sterile  if  originally  crossed."* 

True  Significance  of  the  Term  "  Species." 

From  what  precedes,  then,  it  is  manifest  that 
whether  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  morphology, 
or  from  that  of  physiology,  species  is  something 
which  is  extremely  vague,  and  pregnant  with  diffi- 
culties of  all  kinds.  But  it  is  also  equally  manifest 
that  the  sterility  of  species,  and  of  their  hybrid  prog- 
eny, is  something  which  establishes  different  groups 

'  Op.  cit.,  p.  28. 


Oii^BCtiONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.    191 

of  organisms  that  require  to  be  designated  by  a 
special  term.  Evolutionists  are  willing  to  accept  the 
term  "  species,"  provided,  however,  it  be  understood 
that  this  term  does  not  imply  specific  immutability 
during  all  time.  That  species  may  be  immutable 
during  a  relatively  brief  period,  or  during  the  time 
it  may  have  been  possible  to  study  them,  evolution- 
ists are  ready  to  concede,  but  they  decline  to  admit, 
that  because  certain  forms  are  known  to  have  been 
permanent  for  a  limited  period,  they  must,  therefore, 
have  been  immutable  during  an  indefinite  past  time. 
This  indefinite  immutability  is  what  De  Quatrefages 
and  his  school  demand,  but  it  is,  as  is  obvious,  a 
simple  begging  of  the  question. 

Even  more  than  a  third  of  a  century  back,  the 
eminent  comparative  anatomist,  Richard  Owen,  al- 
though never  in  sympathy  with  the  dominant  school 
of  contemporary  Evolution,  felt  himself  constrained 
to  write  regarding  species  as  follows  :  "  I  apprehend 
that  few  naturalists,  nowadays,  in  describing  and 
proposing  a  name  for  what  they  call  a  new  species, 
use  that  term  to  signify  what  was  meant  by  it  thirty 
years  ago  ;  that  is,  an  originally  distinct  creation, 
maintaining  its  primitive  distinction  by  obstructive 
generative  peculiarities.  The  proposer  of  the  new 
species  now  intends  to  state  no  more  than  he  actu- 
ally knows,  as,  for  example,  that  the  differences  on 
which  he  founds  the  specific  characters  are  constant 
in  individuals  of  both  sexes,  so  far  as  observation 
has  reached  ;  and  that  they  are  not  due  to  domesti- 
cation, or  to  artificially  superinduced  circumstances, 
or  to  any  outward  influence  within  his  cognizance ; 


192  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

that  the  species  is  wild,  or  is  such  as  it  appears  in 
nature.'" 

Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  uncertain 
character  of  species  and  the  impossibility  of  distin- 
guishing species  from  varieties,  or  one  species  from 
another  species,  even  when  they  are  widely  diverg- 
ent, than  certain  experiments  made  some  years  ago 
by  a  Russian  naturalist,  Schmankewitsch,  upon  a 
species  of  crustacean  known  as  artemia  Muhlhaus- 
enii.  Normally,  this  organism  lives  in  water  which 
is  slightly  saline.  By  increasing  the  salinity  of  the 
water,  this  experimenter  was  enabled  to  transform 
the  species  in  question  into  an  entirely  different 
one,  artemia  salina.  Reversing  the  process,  the 
original  species  was  obtained.  But  this  was  not  all. 
By  continuing  to  diminish  the  amount  of  salt  in  the 
water,  a  species  was  finally  obtained  that  was  so 
entirely  different  from  the  original  one,  that  it  had 
previously  been  regarded  as  belonging  to  a  distinct 
genus,  branchippus.  The  changes  mentioned  took 
place  slowly,  the  complete  transformation  being 
effected  only  after  several  generations.  And  all  the 
types  here  referred  to  as  having  been  artificially  pro- 
duced, were  known  before,  and  had  always  been 
considered  as  distinct  species  and  genera.  Now, 
however,  that  their  genetic  relationship  has  been 
demonstrated,  anti-transformists  assert  that  all  the 
three  forms  spoken  of  are  but  varieties  of  one  and 
the   same   species.     And  so   they  must   assert,  for 


'  Cf.  contribution  "  On  the  Osteology  of  the  Chimpanzees 
and  Orangs,"  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Zoological  Societies 
^or  1858. 


OBJECTIONS  A  GAINST  E  VOL  UTION.    193 

otherwise  they  would  be  confronted  with  what 
they  have  always  challenged  their  opponents  to  pro- 
duce— a  tangible  instance  of  the  transmutation  of 
species.  Here,  then,  we  have  another  illustration 
of  the  impossibility  of  satisfying  those  who,  in 
spite  of  all  evidence  to  the  contrary,  persist  in  af- 
firming specific  immutability.  They  group  organ- 
isms into  species  and  genera,  in  accordance  with 
their  preconceived  notions  of  species  and  genus,  but 
when  it  is  shown  that  these  organisms  are  genetic- 
ally related  to  one  another,  they  hasten  to  proclaim 
that  such  forms  of  life  are  all  only  varieties  of  the 
same  species.  Such  being  the  case,  it  is  obviously 
impossible  to  give  an  experimental  proof  of  Evolu- 
tion, for  just  the  moment  that  organisms,  however 
widely  divergent  they  may  appear,  are  proved  to 
be  connected  by  filiation,  they  are  forthwith  pro- 
nounced to  be  but  simple  varieties,  no  matter  what 
views  taxonomists  may  have  previously  held  regard- 
ing them.  Phantom-like,  the  proof  desired  vanishes, 
just  at  the  moment  it  is  thought  to  be  established. 
And  such,  doubtless,  will  continue  to  be  the  case, 
until  naturalists  shall  discover  some  infallible 
method  of  distinguishing  species,  a  highly  improba- 
ble event,  or  until  they  shall  be  willing  to  agree  that 
species,  as  ordinarily  understood — that  is,  something 
permanently  immutable — has,  in  nature,  no  real 
existence. 

Factors  of  Evolution. 

In  this  and  the  preceding  chapters  I  have  con- 
sidered the  arguments  for  and  against  Evolution  in 

E.-I3 


194  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

general,  aside  from  any  of  the  numerous  theories 
which  have  been  advanced  to  account  for  the  com- 
monly accepted  fact  of  Evolution.  But,  before 
closing  this  protracted  discussion,  it  is  important,  for 
a  proper  understanding  of  our  subject,  to  make  a 
few  brief  observations  respecting  the  factors  which 
have  been  operative  in  the  origination  and  develop- 
ment of  species,  and  to  say  a  few  words  regarding 
some  of  the  most  popular  theories  concerning  the 
modus  operandi  of  Evolution. 

As  has  incidentally  been  observed  in  the  forego- 
ing pages,  the  principal  factors  of  Evolution  are:  i, 
the  ph)7sical  environment  ;  2,  the  use  or  disuse  of 
organs  ;  3,  natural  selection.  The  first  two  of  these 
were  recognized  by  Lamarck ; '  while  the  third  owes 
its  prominence  to  the  labors  and  speculations  of 
Charles  Darwin.  In  addition  to  these  three  factors, 
two  others  have  attracted  some  attention,  namely, 
sexual  selection,  suggested  by  Darwin,  and  physio- 
logical selection,  which  was  especially  insisted  on  by 
the  late  Professor  Romanes. 

By  physical  environment  are  understood,  among 
other  things,  the  external  conditions  of  life,  such  as 
temperature,  nature  of  the  soil,  humidity,  dryness 
and  rarity  of  the  atmosphere.  That  organisms, 
whether  animal  or  vegetable,  are  markedly  affected 
by  changes  of  environment  has  long  been  admitted, 
and  it  suffices  here  to  refer  to  the  well-known  results 


*  The  action  of  the  environment  was  not  unknown  to 
Buffon,  and  hence  some  of  his  admirers  are  wont  to  speak  of 
this  factor  as  "  BufFon's  factor."  It  was,  however,  reserved  for 
Lamarck  to  demonstrate  the  important  role  which  environment 
plays  in  causing  variation  of  organic  forms. 


OBJECTIONS  AGAINST  EVOLUTION.     195 

of  adaptation  due  to  changes  of  climate.  Thus,  to 
go  no  further,  '^ pigs  with  fleece  are  to  be  found  on 
the  cold  plateaus  of  the  Cordilleras,  sheep  with  hair 
in  the  warm  valleys  of  the  Madeleine,  and  hairless 
cattle  in  the  burning  plains  of  Mariquita."  That  use 
and  disuse  are  factors  in  Evolution  is  evinced  by 
facts  within  the  experience  of  everybody,  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  general  development  of  the  body  of  the 
athlete,  the  highly  delicate  senses  of  touch  and  hear- 
ing of  the  blind,  or  the  atrophied  limb  of  the  paralytic. 

The  Lamarckian  factors  were  deemed  of  little 
importance  by  Darwin,  but  recently  they  have,  with 
some  modifications,  come  into  special  prominence 
in  America,  and  constitute  the  basis  of  the  new  the- 
ory of  Neo-Lamarckism.  According  to  Cope  and 
Hyatt,  two  of  the  most  prominent  exponents  of  this 
theory,  the  Lamarckian  factors,  especially  the  activi- 
ties of  animals  in  their  constant  endeavor  to  accommo- 
date themselves  to  their  environment,  have  been  the 
chief  agencies  in  producing  varieties  and  species,  and 
consequently,  the  chief  agencies  also  in  the  Evolu- 
tion of  higher  from  lower  forms  of  life. 

Natural  selection,  or  the  "survival  of  the  fittest," 
as  Spencer  loves  to  call  it,  is  an  abbreviated  expres- 
sion for  several  well-recognized  causes  of  evolution- 
ary change.  Among  the  more  prominent  of  these 
are  heredity,  variation  and  struggle  for  existence. 
Darwin,  however,  did  not  teach,  as  is  sometimes 
imagined,  that  natural  selection  is  the  sole  factor  of 
Evolution,  although  he  did,  indeed,  contend  that  it 
is  the  chief  factor.  He  frankly  admitted,  especially 
in  his  later  works,  that  it  left  much  unexplained,  and 


196  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

that  he  had  at  first  over-estimated  its  importance. 
Sexual  selection,  and  the  two  Lamarckian  factors 
just  referred  to,  he  always  considered  as  quite  sec- 
ondary and  subordinate  to  natural  selection.  But 
some  of  Darwin's  disciples,  notably  Wallace,  Haeckel, 
and  Ray  Lankester,  attribute  a  far  greater  potency 
to  natural  selection  than  did  Darwin  himself,  and  are 
disposed  to  regard  it  as  the  sole  and  sufficient  cause 
of  all  organic  development.  So  different,  indeed, 
are  their  views  from  those  of  their  master,  that  they 
have  given  rise  to  a  new  school  of  thought  known  as 
Neo-Darwinism. 

Evolutionary  Theories  and  Their  Difficulties. 

But  all  the  theories  of  Evolution  connected  with 
the  above-named  factors,  Lamarckism  and  Darwin- 
ism, Neo-Lamarckism  and  Neo-Darwinism,  involve 
numerous  and  grave  difficulties,  which,  so  far,  have 
not  been  satisfactorily  answered.  Thus,  it  is  not 
yet  positively  demonstrated  that  the  effects  of  use 
and  disuse  are  inherited.  To  obtain  direct  evidence 
of  the  inheritance  of  acquired  variations  of  this  kind 
has  hitherto  been  attended  with  insuperable  diffi- 
culties. As  to  natural  selection,  it  labors  under  dif- 
ficulties which  are  apparently  even  more  serious, 
and  to  such  an  extent  is  this  true,  that  it  may  well 
be  questioned  if  there  is  a  single  pure  Darwinian 
now  living.  * 


'  Many  years  ago,  it  -will  be  remembered,  Mivart  charac- 
terized natural  selection  as  "a  puerile  hypothesis."  Time  seems 
to  have  confirmed  him  in  his  opinion,  for  in  a  recent  magazine 
article  he  refers  to  natural  selection  as  an  "absurd  and  childish 
theory." 


OBJECTIONS  A GA INS T  B VOL UTION.    197 

Why  do  animals  tend  to  vary?  Why  do  they 
transmit  their  characteristics  to  their  offspring? 
How  can  chance,  irregular,  infinitesimal  variations, 
give  rise  to  all  the  countless  species  which  are  known 
to  have  existed  since  the  dawn  of  life,  and  that 
within  the  interval  of  time  which  astronomers  and 
physicists  are  willing  to  allow?  Why,  if  species 
have  originated  by  minute,  indefinite  and  irregular 
variations,  are  there  not  more  transitional  forms 
than  the  geological  record  actually  discloses?  And 
how  can  variations  be  of  any  avail  in  the  production 
of  a  new  species,  if  these  variations,  as  seems  to  be 
the  case,  are  always  eliminated  by  crossing,  and  if  ac- 
quired characters  are  not  transmitted  by  inheritance? 
Why  is  it  that  certain  features,  which  are  demon- 
strably useless  to  the  individual,  are  preserved,  and 
how  is  it  that  organs  which  are  useful  only  when 
highly  developed,  could  ever  have  had  a  beginning? 
These  are  but  a  few  of  the  many  questions  which 
might  be  asked,  to  which  the  advocates  of  natural 
selection  have  not  as  yet  given  satisfactory  an- 
swers. 

Many  attempts,  it  is  true,  have  been  made  to 
overcome  the  objections  against  natural  selection, 
but  the  success  of  all  such  attempts  is  still  open  to 
question.  Thus,  Moritz  Wagner,  observing  that 
isolation  is  favorable  to  the  development  of  varieties, 
formulated  his  theory  of  isolation  by  migration.  To 
overcome  the  difficulty  embodied  in  the  slow  and 
irregular  variations  which  Darwin  postulated,  Mivart 
and  others  have  formulated  their  theory  of  extraor- 
dinary births.     They   deny  the  truth  of  Leibnitz' 


198  E  VOL  UTIOX  A ND  DOGMA . 

aphorism,  natura  non  facit  saltum,  and  contend  that 
species  are  always  formed  by  what  has  been  desig- 
nated as  saltatory  Evolution,  that  is,  Evolution 
which  effects  such  notable  change  in  an  organism 
that  it  is  constituted  a  distinct  species  from  the  be- 
ginning. Among  the  extraordinary  births  which 
are  appealed  to  as  evidence  of  the  existence  of  sal- 
tatory Evolution,  are  the  Ancon  and  Mauchamp 
breeds  of  sheep,  Niata  cattle,  pug  dogs,  tumbler 
pigeons,  hook-bill  ducks,  and  a  large  number  of  vege- 
table forms  that  have  suddenly  appeared  with 
essentially  the  same  characteristic  features  which 
they  now  exhibit. ' 

To  the  objection  that  we  have  no  evidence  that 
wild  species  ever  originate  in  this  way,  it  is-  replied 
that  "  we  have  never  witnessed  the  origin  of  a  wild 
species  by  any  process  whatever;  and  if  a  species 
were  to  come  suddenly  into  being  in  a  wild  state,  as 
the  Ancon  sheep  did  under  domestication,  how  could 
you  ascertain  the  fact?  If  the  first  of  a  newly- be- 
gotten species  were  found,  the  fact  of  its  discovery 
would  tell  nothing  about  its  origin.  Naturalists 
would  register  it  as  a  very  rare  species,  having  been 
only  once  met  with,  but  they  would  have  no  means 


^  The  real  author  of  the  theory  of  saltatory  Evolution  was 
Geoffroy  Saint- Hilaire.  It  has,  however,  been  specially  devel- 
oped and  supported  by  such  eminent  authorities  as  Mivart, 
Owen,  KoUiker,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll.  Even  Huxley  is  in- 
clined to  take  a  favorable  view  of  it.  "  We  greatly  suspect,"  he 
says,  "  that  she  (nature)  does  make  considerable  jumps  in  the 
way  of  variation  now  and  then,  and  that  these  saltations  give 
rise  to  some  of  the  gaps  which  appear  to  exist  in  the  series  of 
known  forms."  Mr.  Bateson's  recent  theory  of  "  discontinuous 
variations,"  is  essentially  only  a  modification  of  the  theory  of 
saltatory  Evolution  as  held  by  Mivart  and  others. 


OBJECTIONS  A  GAINS  T  E  VOL  UTION.    199 

of  knowing  whether  it  were  the  first  or  the  last  of 
its  race." 

Regarding  the  laws  governing  such  extraordinary 
births,  Mivart  is  unable  to  vouchsafe  any  informa- 
tion. He  is,  however,  of  the  opinion,  that  sufficiently 
numerous  instances  of  such  births  are  known  to  jus- 
tify one  in  accepting  the  theory.  If  it  could  be 
demonstrated  to  be  true,  it  would  at  once  remove 
all  the  difficulties  presented  by  the  lack  of  geolog- 
ical time,  the  absence  or  paucity  of  transitional  forms, 
the  origin  of  rudimentary  organs,  and  the  elimina- 
tion of  variations  by  crossing ;  difficulties  which 
natural  selection  has  been  thus  far  impotent  to  re- 
move. As  is  manifest,  Mivart's  theory  does  not 
explain  the  facts  it  deals  with ;  it  simply  refers  the 
sudden  changes  demanded  to  the  action  of  unknown 
internal  forces.  This,  at  bottom,  is  not  unlike  the 
theory  of  the  German  botanist,  Nageli,  who  would 
account  for  development  by  assuming  that  there  ex- 
ists in  all  organisms  an  internal  tendency  towards 
progression.  But  this  is  obviously  only  another  way 
of  expressing  the  action  of  the  "  perfecting  principle  " 
of  Aristotle,  as  Darwin's  theory  of  chance  variations 
is  but  a  modification  of  the  conjecture  of  "  fortuity 
in  nature,"  of  old  Empedocles. 

Concerning  Weismann's  theory  of  heredity, 
Haeckel's  speculations  on  perigenesis,  Jager's  notions 
regarding  soul-stufif,  and  Brooks'  hypothesis  respect- 
ing both  heredity  and  variation,  we  need  say  noth- 
ing except  that  Weismann's  theory  has  many  points 
of  weakness,  that  the  views  of  Hseckel  and  Jager  are 
based  mostly  on  fancy,  and  that  the  hypothesis  of 


200  E  VOL  U TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

Brooks  is  an  attempt  to  combine  the  theories  of  some 
of  his  predecessors,  especially  those  of  Darwin  and 
Weismann. 

From  the  preceding  paragraphs,  therefore,  it  is 
clear  that,  as  yet,  we  have  no  theory  of  Evolution 
which  is  competent  to  coordinate  all  the  facts  that 
Evolution  is  supposed  to  embrace.  Neither  singly 
nor  collectively  do  the  theories  just  discussed  meet 
the  many  objections  urged  against  them.  All  of 
them,  doubtless,  contain  an  element  of  truth,  but 
how  far  they  can  be  relied  upon  as  guides  in  re- 
search it  is  still  impossible  to  say.  The  same  may 
be  said  concerning  the  so-called  factors  of  Evolution. 
All  of  them,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  are  more  or 
less  potent  in  organic  development,  but  it  is  gener- 
ally  admitted  that  other  factors,  factors  probably 
more  important  than  any  of  those  yet  mentioned, 
remain  to  be  discovered  before  we  can  properly  un- 
derstand the  working  of  Evolution,  and  account  for 
numberless  phenomena  of  the  organic  world  which 
are  still  involved  in  mystery. 

The   Ideal   Theory. 

The  discovery  of  a  true,  comprehensive,  irrefraga- 
ble theory  of  Evolution ;  of  a  theory  of  the  "  or- 
dained becoming  "  of  new  species  by  the  operation 
of  secondary  causes  ;  of  a  theory  which  will  admit 
a  preconceived  progress  "towards  a  foreseen  goal;"' 
of  a  theory  which  in  its  "  broad  features  "  will  disclose 
the  unmistakable  evidence  and  the  certain  impress  of 
a  Divine  intelligence  and  purpose — this  is  something 

'  Cf.  Owen's  '•  Anatomy  of  Vertebi-ates,"  vol.  III,  ch.  xl, 


OBJE C TIONS  A GA INS T  BVOLU TION.    201 

which  still  remains  to  be  accomplished,  but  some- 
thing which  can  scarcely  be  realized  before  many 
years  shall  have  elapsed,  and  until  much  serious 
labor  shall  have  been  expended  on  the  vast,  and  as 
yet  but  partially  explored,  domain  of  animated  na- 
ture.' Such  a  theory,  when  fully  worked  out,  will 
do  for  biology  what  the  heliocentric  theory  has 
achieved  for  astronomy.  It  will  place  in  the  clear 
light  of  day  what  is  now  veiled  in  darkness,  and 
render  certain  what  at  present  can  but  vaguely  be 
surmised.  The  lack  of  this  perfected  theory,  how- 
ever, does  not  imply  that  we  have  not  already  an 
adequate  basis  for  a  rational  assent  to  the  theory  of 
organic  Evolution.  By  no  means.  The  arguments 
adduced  in  behalf  of  Evolution  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  are  of  sufficient  weight  to  give  the  theory 
a  degree  of  probability  which  permits  of  little  doubt 
as  to  its  truth. 

Whatever,  then,  may  be  said  of  Lamarckism, 
Darwinism  and  other  theories  of  Evolution,  the 
fact  of  Evolution,  as  the  evidence  now  stands,  is 
scarcely  any  longer  a  matter  for  controversy.  Hence, 
it  is  the  factors  which  have  been  operative  during 
the  long  course  of  organic  development,  and  a 
theory  that  can  be  brought  into  harmony  with  these 
factors,  and  which  is  at  the  same  time  in  consonance 
with  the  phenomena  observed,  that  men  of  science 

*  In  the  American  Naturalist  for  May,  1895,  Professor 
Osborn,  in  concluding  an  interesting  article  on  the  "  Search  for 
the  Unknown  Factors  of  Evolution,"  pertinently  observes  :  "Mj' 
last  word  is  that  we  are  entering  the  threshold  of  the  Evolution 
problem  instead  of  standing  within  its  portals.  The  hardest 
tasks  lie  before  us,  not  behind  us,  and  their  solution  will  carry 
US  well  into  the  twentieth  century." 


202  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

are  now  seeking.  Whether  the  divers  conjectures 
which  at  present  obtain,  regarding  the  method  ac- 
cording to  which  Evolution  has  acted  in  past  time, 
and  according  to  which  it  must  still  act,  be  true  or 
false,  matters  little  so  far  as  Evolution  itself  is  con- 
cerned. The  true,  the  all-embracing  theory,  which 
is  now  the  object  of  the  earnest  quest  of  so  many 
ardent  investigators  the  world  over,  and  which,  as 
Professor  Owen  believed,  should  constitute  the  chief 
end  and  aim  of  biological  research,  is  something 
which  we  must  look  to  the  future  to  supply.  And 
when  such  a  theory  shall  have  been  elaborated,  as 
every  advance  in  science  leads  us  to  believe  it  will 
be,  then  will  it  be  found  to  be  as  superior  in  sim- 
plicity, beauty  and  comprehensiveness,  to  all  current 
theories  of  Evolution,  as  the  grand  and  far-reaching 
conceptions  of  Copernicus  and  Newton  are  superior 
to  the  almost  forgotten  speculations  of  Ptolemy  and 
Aristarchus. 


PART  II. 


EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 


£lvai  yap  naa?}s  n7.avi]s  koi  ilievSoSo^ias  alriov,  to  fi^  Svvaadat 
6iaKpiveiVf  nij  re  oXkiffMis  ra  ovra  Koivuvei,  kol  nfj  diEvfyvoxsv.  £1  6s  fitj 
Kara  Siupiafitva  tis  tov  ?.6yov  i:(j>o6e{joi,  Ayaerai  cvyx^as  rd  re  mcva  koi 
TO.  idia  rovTov  de  yivofihov,  els  avoSiav  koi  nAavr/v  ifiir'nTTeiv  avayKoiov. 

"  For  the  cause  of  all  error  and  false  opinion,  is  inability  to 
distinguish  in  what  respect  things  are  common,  and  in  what  re- 
spect they  differ.  For  unless,  in  things  that  are  distinct,  one 
closely  watch  speech,  he  will  inadvertently  confound  what  is 
common  and  what  is  peculiar.  And  where  this  takes  place,  he 
must  of  necessity  fall  into  pathless  tracts  and  error." 

Clement  of  Alexandria. — "  Stromata."  Book  VI,  chap.  x. 


(804) 


PART  II. 

EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORY,  ERRORS  IN  DOCTRINE 
AND  MISTAKES  IN  TERMINOLOGY. 

Evolution  of  the  Evolution  Theory. 

IN  the  preceding  pages  we  have  considered  what 
might  be  termed  the  evolution  of  the  theory  of 
Evolution.  We  traced  its  development  from  its 
earliest  germs,  as  disclosed  in  the  speculations  of 
Hindu  and  Greek  philosophy,  and  reviewed  some  of 
the  evidence  ordinarily  adduced  in  its  support,  as  well 
as  the  objections  which  are  commonly  urged  against 
its  acceptance.  We  also  adverted  to  some  of  the 
many  attempted  explanations  of  Evolution,  which 
have  been  proposed  since  the  publication  of  Darwin's 
"  Origin  of  Species,"  and  noted  the  wide  divergence 
of  views  which  obtains  respecting  some  of  the  most 
fundamental  elements  of  the  theory.  We  learned 
that  the  great  majority  of  contemporary  scientists_ 
are  believers  in  some  theory  of  organic  Evolution ; 
that  the  controversy  is  no  longer  about  the  fact  o7 
Evolution — that  being  assumed,  if  not  demonstrated — 
but  rather   regarding  the   factors  which  have  been 

— (206)  _ 


206  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

operative  in  the  onward  march  of  animal  and  vege- 
table life,  and  the  processes  which  have  characterized 
organic  development  in  its  divers  phases  and  epochs. 
We  may  not  be  prepared  to  go  the  same  lengths  as 
do  Spencer,  Huxley  and  Fiske,  in  the  demands  which 
they  make  for  Evolution  as  the  one  controlling  agency 
in  the  world  of  phenomena ;  we  may  refuse  assent  to 
the  theories  of  Darwin,  Mivart,  Cope,  Brooks,  Weis- 
mann,  Nageli  and  others  ;  but  it  seems  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  to  ignore  the  fact  that  some  kind  of 
Evolution  has  obtained  in  the  formation  of  the 
material  universe,  and  in  the  development  of  the 
divers  forms  of  life  with  which  our  earth  is  peopled. 
The  question  now  is :  How  are  we  to  envisage 
this  process  of  Evolution,  and  what  limits  are  we  to 
assign  to  it?  Is  it  as  universal  in  its  action  as  it  is 
usually  claimed  to  be,  or,  is  the  sphere  of  its  activity 
restricted  and  confined  within  certain  definite,  fixed 
limits,  beyond  which  it  may  not  extend  ?  And  then, 
a  far  more  important  question  comes  to  the  fore,  a 
question  to  which  all  that  has  hitherto  been  said  is 
but  a  preamble — a  long  one,  it  is  true,  but  still  only 
a  preamble — and  that  is,  how  is  faith  affected  by 
Evolution,  or,  in  other  words,  what  is  the  attitude 
of  Dogma  towards  Evolution  ? 

Evolution  and  Darwinism.  ^f\DT  'fkt  ^^M/€ 

To  this  last  question  various  answers  have  been  , 

given,  many  of  them  contradictory,  more  of  them  f'"^'^ 


absurd,  few  of  them  satisfactory  or  philosophical. -//^y 
All  remember  the  storm  that  was  raised  against  ^^ 
Darwinism   on  its   first  appearance,  a  few  decades 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THBORT.  207 

ago.  Darwinism,  however,  is  not  Evolution,  as  is  so 
often  imagined,  but  only  one  of  the  numerous  at- 
tempts which  have  been  made  to  explain  the  modus 
operandi  of  Evolution.  Nevertheless,  for  a  long  time 
Darwinism  and  Evolution  were  regarded  as  synony- 
mous— as  in  the  popular  mind  they  are  still  synony- 
mous— even  by  those  who  should  have  been  better 
informed.  The  objections  which  were  advanced 
against  Darwinism  were  urged  against  Evolution, 
and  vice  versa.  And  in  most  of  the  controversies 
relating  to  these  topics  there  was  a  lamentable,  often 
a  ridiculous,  ignorance  of  the  teachings  of  the 
Church,  and  this,  more  than  anything  else,  accounts 
for  the  odium  theologicum,  and  the  odium  scientifi- 
cum,  which  have  been  so  conspicuous  in  religious 
and  scientific  literature  during  the  past  third  of  a 
century. 

During  the  first  few  years  after  the  publication 
of  "  The  Origin  of  Species,"  there  were  but  few,  even 
among  professed  men  of  science,  who  did  not  con- 
demn Darwinism  as  irreligious  in  tendency,  if  not 
distinctly  atheistic  in  principle.  "Materialistic"  and 
**  pantheistic,"  were,  however,  the  epithets  usually 
applied  both  to  Evolution  and  the  theory  so  pa- 
tiently elaborated  by  Darwin.  Prof.  Louis  Aga&^ 
siz,  as  we  have  already  seen,  did  not  hesitate  to 
denounce  "  the  transmutation  theory  as  a  scientific 
mistake,  untrue  in  its  facts,  unscientific  in  its  method, 
and  mischievous  in  its  tendency."  Certain  others  of 
Darwin's  critics  characterized  his  theory  as  "  an  acer- 
vation  of  endless  conjectures,"  as  an  "  utterly  rotten 
fabric  of  guess  and  speculation,"  and  reprobated  his 


208  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA. 

"mode  of  dealing  with  nature"  as  "utterly  dis- 
honorable to  natural  science,"  and  as  contradict- 
ing "the  revealed  relation  of  the  creation  to  its 
Creator." ' 

Darwinism  was  spoken  of  as  "  an  attempt  to  de- 
throne  Godj"  as  "  the  only  form  of  infidelity  from 
which  Christianity  has  anything  to  fear;"  as  doing 
"  open  violence  to  everything  which  the  Creator 
Himself  has  told  us  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  methods 
and  results  of  His  work."  It  was  declared  to  be  "  a 
dishonoring  view  of  nature;"  "a  jungle  of  fanciful 
assumption ;"  and  those  who  accepted  it  were  said 
to  be  "under the  frenzied  inspiration  of  the  inhaler 
of  mephitic  gas."  "  If  the  Darwinian  theory  is  true," 
averred  another,  "  Genesis  is  a  lie,  the  whole  frame- 
work of  the  Book  of  Life  falls  to  pieces,  and  the 
revelation  of  God  to  man,  as  we  Christians  know  it, 
is  a  delusion  and  a  snare." 

Evolution  naturally  shared  in  the  denunciations 
hurled  against  Darwinism.  It  was  designated  as  "a 
philosophy  of  mud;"  as  "the  boldest  of  all  the 
philosophies  which  have  sprung  up  in  our  world  ;  " 
as  "a  flimsy  framework  of  hypothesis,  constructed 
upon  imaginary  or  irrelevant  facts,  with  a  complete 


'  M.Flourens,  perpetual  secretary  of  the  French  Academy 
of  Sciences,  thus  wrote  of  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species,"shortly 
after  its  appearance  : 

"  Enfin  I'ouvrage  de  M.  Darwin  a  paru.  On  ne  peut 
qu'6tre  frapp6  du  talent  de  I'auteur  ;  mais  que  d'idees  obscures, 
qued'idees  fausses!  Quel  jargon  metaphysique  jete  mal-a-propos 
dans  I'histoire  naturelle,  qui  tombe  dans  le  galimatias  des 
qu'elle  sort  des  id^es  claires,  des  idees  justes.  Quel  langage 
pretentieux  et  vide !  Quelles  personifications  pueriles  et 
surannees!  O  lucidite !  O  solidite  de  I'esprit  franjais,  que 
devenez-vous?" 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORT.  209 

departure  from  every  established  canon  of  scientific 
investigation."  It  was  stigmatized  as  "flatly  op- 
posed to  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  creation,"  and  as 
discharging  God  "  from  the  governing  of  the  world." 
The  distinguished  Canadian  geologist,  Sir  J.  W. 
Dawson,  in  speaking  of  the  subject,  affirms  that 
"  the  doctrine  [of  Evolution]  as  carried  out  to  its 
logical  consequences  excludes  creation  and  Theism. 
It  may,  however,  be  shown,  that  even  in  its  more 
modified  forms,  and  when  held  by  men  who  main- 
tain that  they  are  not  atheists,  it  is  practically 
atheistic,  because  excluding  the  idea  of  plan  and 
design,  and  resolving  all  things  into  the  action  of 
unintelligent  forces."' 

^^/..^/^^    ^^ 
Evolution,  Atheism  and  Nihilism.  ,j  ,>^/P    y"> 

To  judge  from  the  declarations  of  some  of  the 
most  ardent  champions  of  Evolution,  it  musX_be  ad- 
mitted that  orthodoxy  had   reason  to  be  _at  least 
suspicious,  of  the    theory  that   was  heralded  forth 
with   such   pomp   and   circumstance.      For   it   was 
announced  with  the  loudest   flourish  of  trumpets, 
not  only  that  Evolution  is  a  firmly  established  doc- 
trine, about  whose  truth    there   can  no  longer  be 
any  doubt,  butjt^was  alsq_boldly  declared^  by  some 
of  its  most  noted  exponents,  to  be  subversive  of  all 
religioji jnd^f  all  belief_in  a  Deity.     Materialists, 
/atheists,  and  anarchists  the  world  over,  loudly  pro- 
y  claimed  that  there  is  no  God,  because,  they  would 
^  have  it,  science  had  demonstrated  that  there  is  no 


* "  Story  of  the  Earth  and  Man,"  p.  348. 
E.-14 


210  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

longer  any  raison  d'Hre  for  such  a  Being.  Evolu- 
tion, they  claimed,  takes  the  place  of  creation,  and 
eternal,  self-existent  matter  and  force  exclude  an 
omnipotent  personal  Creator.  "  God,"  we  are  told, 
"  is  the  world,  infinite,  eternal,  and  unchangeable  in 
its  being  and  in  its  laws,  but  ever-varying  in  its  cor- 
relations." A  glance  at  the  works  of  Haeckel,  Vogt, 
Biichner,  and  others  of  this  school,  is  sufficient  to 
prove  how  radical  and  rabid  are  the  views  of  these 
*'  advanced  thinkers." 

It  is  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  such  teach- 
ing that  "  science,"  as  Caro  observes,  "conducts  God 
with  honor  to  its  frontiers,  thanking  Him  for  His 
provisional  services."  It  is  such  science  that  de- 
clares that  "  faith  in  a  personal  and  living  God  is 
the  origin  and  fundamental  cause  of  our  miserable 
social  condition  ;  "  and  that  advances  such  views  as 
these  ;  "  The  true  road  to  liberty,  to  equality,  and  to 
happiness,  is  Atheism.  No  safety  on  earth,  so  long 
as  man  holds  on  by  a  thread  to  heaven.  Let  noth- 
ing henceforth  shackle  the  spontaneity  of  the  hu- 
man mind.  Let  us  teach  man  that  there  is  no  other 
God  than  himself;  that  he  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega 
of  all  things,  the  superior  being,  and  the  most  real 
reality." 

It  was  in  consequence  of  the  circulation  of  such 
views  among  the  masses,  that  Virchow  and  others 
declared  Evolution  responsible,  not  only  for  the  at- 
tempts made  by  Hodel  and  Nobeling  on  the  life  of 
the  emperor  of  Germany,  but  also  for  all  the  miser- 
ies  and  horrors  of  the  Paris  Commune.  For  the 
theory  of  Evolution,  in  its  atheistic  form,  is  one  of 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  OR  T.  211 

the  cardinal  tenets  of  nihilists,  and  their  device  is : 
"Neither  God,  nor  master,"  Ni  Dieu,  ni  maitre. 
It  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Krapot- 
kins  and  R^clus,  who  "  see  in  the  hive  and  the 
ant-hill  the  only  fundamental  rule  of  right  and 
wrong,  although  bees  destroy  one  class  of  their 
number  and  ants  are  as  warlike  as  Zulus,"  And  we 
all  remember  how  Vaillant,  the  bomb-thrower  in  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  boastfully  posed  as  the  logical 
executant  of  the  ideas  of  the  Darwins  and  the 
Spencers,  whose  teachings,  he  contended,  he  was  but 
carrying  out  to  their  legitimate  conclusions.* 

Evolution  and  Faith.     ^  ^  1 1  "  r    '    / 

But  all  evolutionists  have  not  entertained,  and 
do  not  entertain,  the  same  opinions  as  those  just 
mentioned.  America's  great  botanist.  Prof.  Asa 
Gray,  was  not  so  minded.  One  of  the  earliest  and 
most  valiant  defenders  of  Darwinism,  as  well  as  a 
professed  Christian  believer,  he  maintained  that 
there  is  nothing  in  Evolution,  or  Darwinism,  which 
is  incompatible  with  Theism.  In  an  interesting 
chapter  on  Evolution  and  Theology,  in  his  "  Dar- 
winiana,"'  he  gives  it  as  his  opinion,  arrived  at  after 
long  consideration,  that  "  Mr.  Darwin  has  no  atheis- 
tical intent,  and  that,  as  respects  the  test  question 
of  design  in  nature,  his  view  may  be  made  clear  to 
the  theological  mind  by  likening  it  to  that  of  the 


*  Ravachol,  another  dynamitard,  of  the  same  school  as 
Vaillant,  confessed  on  his  way  to  the  guillotine  :  *^Si  favais  cru 
en  Dicti,  je  n' aurais  fait  ce  que  fai  faitT 


212  EVOLU  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

'believer  in  general,  but  not  in  particular,  Provi- 
dence.'" So  far,  indeed,  was  Darwin  from  having 
any  "  atheistical  intent,"  that  when  interrogated  re- 
garding certain  of  his  religious  views  he  replied:  "In 
my  most  extreme  fluctuations  I  have  never  been  an 
atheist  in  the  sense  of  denying  the  existence  of 
God." '  And  the  late  Dr.  McCosh  declared,  that  he 
had  "  never  been  able  to  see  that  religion,  and  in 
particular  that  Scripture,  in  which  our  religion  is 
embodied,  is  concerned  with  the  absolute  immuta- 
bility of  species."  * 

The  Rev.  Doctor  Pohle  thus  expresses  himself 
in  an  able  and  interesting  article  on  Darwinism  and 
Theism :  "  I  feel  bound  to  confess  that  I  never 
could  prevail  upon  myself  to  believe,  that  Darwinism 
contains  nothing  short  of  a  hot-bed  of  infidelity  and 
iniquity,  brought  into  a  system,  and  is,  therefore, 
irreconcilable  on  principle  with  a  sincere  and  pious 
belief  in  a  First  Cause  and  Designer  of  the  world."  * 

The  illustrious  Dominican  confer encier.  Father 
Monsabr^,  records  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  theory 
of  Evolution,  "  far  from  compromising  the  orthodox 
belief  in  the  creative  action  of  God,  reduces  this 
action  to  a  small  number  of  transcendent  acts,  more 
.in  conformity  with  the  unity  of  the  Divine  plan  and 
the  infinite  wisdom  of  the  Almighty,  who  knows 
how  to  employ  secondary  causes  to  attain  his 
ends."  *     This  is  in  keeping  with  the  view  of  the  dis- 

^"  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,"  vol.  I,  p.  274. 
*"The  Religious  Aspect  of  Evolution,"  p.  27. 
^American  Ecclesiastical  Reviev.\  Sept.  1892;  p.  163. 
* "  L'fivolution  des  Especes  Organiques,  par  le  Pere  M.  D. 
Leroy,  O.  P.,"  p.  4. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORY .  213 

tinguished  German  Catholic  writer,  Doctor  C.  Giitt- 
ler,  who  asserts  that  "  Darwin  has  eliminated  neither 
the  concept  of  creation,  nor  that  of  design  ;  that,  on 
the  contrary,  he  has  ennobled  both  the  one  and  the 
other.  He  does  not  remove  teleology,  but  merely 
puts  it  farther  back."  ' 

Evolution  and  Science.  — 

But  there  are  yet  others  to  be  heard  from.  Ac- 
cording to  Huxley,  who  is  an  avowed  agnostic,  the 
*'  doctrine  of  Evolution  is  neither  anti-theistic  nor 
theistic.  It  simply  has  no  more  to  do  with  Theism 
than  the  first  book  of  Euclid  has." "  It  will  be  ob- 
served that  with  Huxley,  Evolution  is  neither  a  hy- 
pothesis nor  a  theory,  but  a  doctrine.  So  is  it  with 
many  others  of  its  advocates.  It  is  no  longer  some- 
thing whose  truth  may  be  questioned,  but  something 
which  has  been  established  permanently  on  the  solid 
foundation  of  facts.  It  has,  we  are  assured,  success- 
fully withstood  all  the  ordeals  of  observation  and 
experiment,  and  is  now  to  be  counted  among  those 
acquisitions  of  science  which  admit  of  positive  dem- 
onstration. Thus,  a  few  years  ago,  in  an  address  be- 
fore the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement 


'  "  Lorenz  Oken  und  sein  Verhaltniss  zur  modernen  Ent- 
wickelungslehre,"  p.  129. 

"  Transformismus  Darwinianus,"  declares  the  Rev.  J.  Cor- 
luy,  S.  J.,  "dicendus  est  sensui  Scripturse  obvio  contradicere, 
non  tamen  aperte  textui  sacro  adversari  ;  tacet  enim  Scriptura 
tnodum  quo  terra  varietatetn  illam  specierum  produxerit,  an 
statim  an  decursu  temporum,  an  cum  specierum  firmitate  an 
cum  relativa  duntaxat.  Sed  et  de  sensu  disputari  posset  quern 
Scriptura  hie  assignet  nomini  7  ''tp,"  Min.,  "  Specilegium  Dog- 
matico-Biblicum,"  torn.  I,  p.  198. 

*  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Darwin,"  vol.  I,  p.  556. 


214  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

of  Science,  Prof.  Marsh  said  :  "  I  need  offer  no  argu- 
ment for  Evolution,  since  to  doubt  Evolution  is  to 
doubt  science,  and  science  is  only  another  name  for 
truth."  "  The  theory  of  Evolution,"  writes  M.  Ch. 
Martins,  in  the  Revue  de  Deux  Mondes,  "  links  to- 
gether all  the  questions  of  natural  history,  as  the 
laws  of  Newton  have  connected  all  the  movements 
of  the  heavenly  bodies.  This  theory  has  all  the 
characters  of  Newtonian  laws."  Prof.  Joseph  Le 
Conte,  however,  goes  much  further  :  '*  We  are  con- 
fident," he  declares,  "that  Evolution  is  absolutely 
certain,  not  indeed  Evolution  as  a  special  theory — 
Lamarckian,  Darwinian,  Spencerian — but  Evolution 
as  a  law  of  derivation  of  forms  from  previous  forms ; 
Evolution  as  a  law  of  continuity,  as  a  universal  law 
of  becoming.  In  this  sense  it  is  not  only  certain,  it 
is  axiomatic."  ' 

Ignorance  of  Terms. 

But,  wherefore,  it  may  be  asked,  have  we  such 
diverse  and  conflicting  opinions  regarding  the  nature 
and  tendency  of  Evolution  ?  Why  is  it  that  some 
still  persist  in  considering  it  a  *'  flimsy  hypothesis," 
while  others  as  stoutly  maintain  that  it  is  a  firmly 
established  doctrine?  Why  is  it  that  some  believe 
it  to  be  neutral  and  indifferent,  so  far  as  faith  is  con- 
cerned, and  others  find  in  its  tenets  illustrations  and 
corroborations  of  many  of  the  truths  of  Dogma ;  that 
there  are  so  many  who  see,  or  fancy  they  see  in  it, 
the  negation  of  God,  the  destruction  of  religion,  and 
the   subversion  of   all   order,   social   and   political? 

'  "Evolution,  and  Its  Relation  to  Religious  Thought,"  p,  65. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORY.  215 

These  are  questions  which  are  frequently  asked, 
and  that  press  themselves  upon  even  the  most  su- 
perficial reader.  Are  they  insoluble?  Must  they 
be  relegated  forever  to  the  domain  of  paradox  and 
mystery,  or  is  there  even  a  partial  explanation  to  be 
offered  for  such  clashing  opinions  and  such  glaring 
contradictions  ?  With  all  due  deference  to  the  judg- 
ment of  those  who  see  nothing  good  in  Evolution, 
nothing  which  must  not  incontinently  be  con- 
demned as  false  and  iniquitous,  I  think  that  the 
enigma  may  be  solved,  and  that  it  may  be  shown 
that  the  contradictions,  as  is  usually  the  case  in  such 
matters,  are  due  mostly,  if  not  wholly,  to  an  ignoratio 
elenchi^  a  misapprehension  of  terms,  or  to  a  delibe- 
rate intention  of  exploiting  a  pet  theory  at  the  ex- 
pense of  religion  and  Dogma,  which  are  ostenta- 
tiously repudiated  as  based  on  superstition  and 
falsehood. 

The  two  words  most  frequently  misunderstood 
and  misemployed  are  "  creation "  and  "  nature." 
They  are  of  constant  occurrence  in  all  scientific 
treatises,  but  no  one  who  is  not  familiar  with  the 
writings  of  modern  evolutionists  has  any  conception 
of  the  extent  to  which  these  terms  are  misapplied. 
For  this  reason,  therefore,  it  is  well,  before  proceed- 
ing further,  briefly  to  indicate  the  meaning  which 
Catholic  theology  attaches  to  these  much-abused 
words. 

Materialism  and  Dualism. 

From  the  earliest  times,  the  dogma  of  creation 
has  been  a  stumbling-block  to  certain  students  of 


216  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA. 

science  and  philosophy.  The  doctrines,  however, 
which  have  met  with  most  general  acceptance  re- 
garding the  origin  and  constitution  of  the  universe, 
can  be  reduced  to  a  few  typical  and  comprehensive 
classes. 

First  of  all,  comes  the  Materialism  of  Leucippus 
and  Democritus,  of  Heraclitus  and  of  Empedocles, 
of  Epicurus  and  the  philosophers  of  the  Ionian 
school.  The  only  reality  they  recognized  was  matter. 
Simple  atoms,  infinite  in  number,  eternal  and  uncre- 
ated, moving  eternally  ij)  a  ym4mfiniteln^xteiit,_are, 
of  themselves,  the  only  postulate  demanded  byjnate^^ 
rialists  to  explain  thejiniverse  and  all  thephenom- 
ena  which  it  exhibits.  It  excludes  the  intervention 
ofan  intelligent  cause,  and  attributes  all  life  and 
thought  to  the  mere  interaction  of  the  ultimate 
atoms  of  brute  matter.  Morality,  according  to  this 
teaching,  is  but  "  a  form  of  the  morality  of  pleasure," 
religion  is  the  outcome  of  fear  and  superstition,  and 
God  the  name  of  a  being  who  has  no  existence  out- 
side of  the  imaginations  of  the  ignorant  and  the  self- 
deceived. 

Materialism,  as  is  obvious,  is  but  another  name 
for  Atheism,  and  is  a  blank  negation  of  creatjon^s 
well  as  of  God.  "  Rigorously  speaking,"  as  M. 
Caro  well  observes,  "  Materialism  has  no  history, 
or,  at  least,  its  history  is  so  little  varied  that  it  can 
be  given  in  a  few  lines.  Under  what  form  soever  it 
presents  itself,  it  is  immediately  recognized  by  the 
absolute  simplicity  of  the  solutions  which  it  proposes. 
Contemporary  Materialism  has  in  nowise  changed 
the  framework  of  this  philo.sophy  of  twenty  centuries' 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  OR  T.  217 

standing.  It  has  never  deviated  from  its  original 
program  ;  it  has  but  been  enriched  with  scientific 
notions  ;  it  has  been  transformed  in  appearance  only, 
by  being  surcharged  with  the  data,  the  views,  the 
hypotheses,  infinite  in  number,  which  are  the  out- 
growth of  the  physical,  chemical,  and  physiological 
sciences.  Democritus  would  easily  recognize  his 
teaching,  if  he  were  to  read  the  works  of  M.  Buch- 
ner ;  even  the  language  used  has  undergone  but  a 
trifling  change.'"  Indeed,  "the  history  of  Material- 
ism," as  has  well  been  remarked,  "  may  be  reduced 
to  indicating  the  influence  which  it  has  exercised  at 
divers  epochs,  and  to  recording  the  names  of  its 
most  famous  representatives." 

The  advocates  of  Dualism,  like  the  defenders  of 
Materialism,  taught  the  eternity  of  matter,  but  in 
addition  to  eternal,  uncreated  matter,  recognized  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God.  Many  of  the  philoso- 
phers of  antiquity,  who  escaped  the  errors  of  Mate- 
rialism and  Pantheism,  fell  headlong  into  those  of 
Dualism,  which  possessed  as  many  forms  as  Proteus 
himself.  Thus,  the  Manicheans  asserted  the  exist- 
ence of  two  principles,  one  good,  the  other  evil ; 
the  former,  the  creator  of  souls,  the  latter,  the  crea- 
tor of  bodies.  According  to  the  gnostics,  the  world 
is  the  work  of  the  angels,  and  not  the  immediate  re- 
sult of  Divine  creative  action.  Even  according  to 
J.  Stuart  Mill,  matter  is  uncreated  and  eternal.  God, 
he  will  have  it,  but  fashioned  the  universe  out  of 
self-existent  material,  and  far  from  being  the  Crea- 


*  "  Le  Mat^rialisme  et  la  Science,"  p.  136. 


218  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

tor  of  the  world,  in  the  strict  acceptation  of  the 
term,  is  but  its  architect  and  builder. 

Both  Materialism  and  Dualism  are  one  in  assert- 
ing the  eternity  of  matter.  Materialism,  however, 
is  atheistic,  in  that  it  excludes  a  Creator,  while  Dual- 
ism, although  rejecting  creation,  properly  so  called, 
admits  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being.  But 
God,  according  to  dualists,  is  little  more  than  a 
demiurge.  He  is  powerful,  but  not  omnipotent. 
The  eternal,  self-existent  matter  which  is  postulated, 
and  which  exists  outside  of  God,  rebels  against  His 
action,  and  becomes  a  cosmic  power  against  which 
He  is  powerless.  '  / 

Pantheism.  -  /^^^  d/Z'^^/^cfK  J 

Pantheism  is  the  opposite  of  Materialism.  Ac- 
cording to  the  latter,  as  we  have  seen,  everything 
is  matter;  according  to  the  former,  as  the  word 
indicates,  everything  is  God.  The  finite  and  the 
infinite ;  the  contingent  and  the  necessary  ;  beings, 
which  appear  in  time,  and  God,  who  is  from  eternity, 
are,  according  to  the  teachings  of  pantheists,  but  dif- 
ferent aspects  of  the  same  existence.  Whether  we 
consider  the  emanation  of  the  Brahmans,  the  Pan- 
theism of  the  Eleatics,  or  that  of  the  neo-Platonists 
of  Alexandria,  or  that  of  Spinoza,  Fichte,  Schelling 
and  Hegel,  the  doctrines  so  taught  issue  in  the  nega- 
tion of  creation  as  well  as  in  the  negation  of  the 
true  nature  of  God.  For  to  predicate,  in  what 
manner  soever,  an  identity  of  God  with  the  world, 
or  to  conceive  God  as  the  material  principle,  or  the 
primal  matter,  from  which  everything  emanates,  as 
pantheists  do,  is  to  negative   completely  not   only 


7 


MTSCONCEPTTONS  OF  THEORT.  219 

the  Christian  idea  of  God,  a  Being  eternal,  spiritual 
in  substance,  and  distinct  from  the  world  in  reality 
and  essence,  but  also  the  Christian  and  the  only  true 
idea  of  creation. 

Having  briefly  adverted  to  some  of  the  principal 
philosophical  doctrines  which  exclude  creation  in 
the  Christian  and  Scriptural  sense,  and  having  given 
a  hasty  glance  at  some  of  the  more  widely-spread 
errors  respecting  the  nature  of  the  Creator  and  His 
creatures,  we  are  now  prepared  to  consider  the 
teachings  of  Catholic  philosophy  and  theology  as 
to  creation,  and  as  to  the  origin  and  nature  of  the 
material  universe. 

'     <^-^^'"^  Dogrma';  of  Creation,  "^/^ff    ))if^  -f-k^    r^C'^i'<k>i 

Creation,  in  its  strictest  sense,  is  the  production,  /j-jj^/^m 
by  God,  of  something  from  nothing.  The  universe 
and  all  it  contains  was  called  into  existence  ex  nihilo, 
by  an  act  of  the  Creator,  which  was  not  only  super- 
natural, but  also  absolute  and  free.  It  was,  there- 
fore, in  no  wise  formed  from  preexisting  material, 
for  none  existed,  nor  by  any  emanation  from  the 
Divine  substance.  God  alone  is  necessary  and 
eternal ;  the  world  of  matter  and  the  world  of  spirit, 
outside  of  God,  are  contingent,  and  have  their  exist- 
ence in  time.  But,  notwithstanding  that  the  nature 
of  the  world  of  created  things  is  finite,  and  entirely 
different  from  the  Divine  nature,  which  alone  is  in- 
finite and  necessary,  nevertheless,  all  the  creatures 
of  God  have  a  real  existence,  although  limited  in 
its  duration  and  dependent  entirely  on  Divine 
Providence  for  its  continuance. 


220  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

A  secondary  meaning  of  the  word  "  creation,"  is 
the  formation,  by  God,  of  something  from  preexist- 
ing material.  This  is  the  natural  action  of  God  in 
the  ordaining  or  administering  of  the  world,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  supernatural  act  of  absolute 
creation  from  nothing.  In  this  sense  God  is  said  to 
create  derivatively,  or  by  the  agency  of  secondary 
causes.  He  creates  potentially  ;  that  is,  He  gives  to 
matter  the  power  of  producing  or  evolving,  under 
suitable  conditions,  all  the  manifold  forms  it  may 
ever  assume.  In  the  beginning  He  created  matter 
directly  and  absolutely,  once  for  all ;  but  to  the  mat- 
ter thus  created  He  added  certain  natural  forces — 
what  St.  Augustine  calls  rationes  seminales — and  put 
it  under  the  action  of  certain  laws,  which  we  call 
"  the  laws  of  nature."  Through  the  operation  of 
these  laws,  and  in  virtue  of  the  powers  conferred  on 
matter  in  the  beginning,  God  produces  indirectly, 
derivatively,  by  the  operation  of  secondary  causes, 
all  the  various  forms  which  matter  may  subsequently 
assume,  and  all  the  divers  phenomena  of  the  phys- 
ical universe. 

In  another  sense,  also,  the  word  "  creation  "  may 
be  employed,  as  when  we  speak  of  the  creations  of 
genius,  or  refer  to  creations  of  Raphael,  Michael 
Angelo,  or  Brunelleschi.  In  these  cases,  the  work 
of  the  artist  or  of  the  architect  consists  simply  in 
making  use  of  the  laws,  and  powers  and  materials  of 
nature,  in  such  wise  as  to  effect  a  change  in  form  or 
condition.  The  action  of  the  intelligent  agents  in 
this  case  being  natural,  but  more  than  physical,  may 
conveniently  be  designated  as  hyperphysical. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORT.  221 

With  hyperphysical  creation  we  shall  have  little 
to  do.  Our  chief  concern  will  be  with  absolute,  or 
direct  creation,  and  with  secondary  or  derivative 
creation,  both  of  which  are  so  often  misunder- 
stood and  confounded,  if  not  positively  denied.  It 
would,  indeed,  seem  that  the  sole  aim  and  purpose 
of  a  certain  school  of  modern  scientists,  is  to  discover 
some  means  of  evading  the  mystery  of  creation.  For 
they  not  only  deny  creation,  but  also  deny  its  possi- 
bility, and  all  this  because  they,  with  "the  fool,"  per- 
sist in  saying  in  their  hearts  "  There  is  no  God."  So 
great,  indeed,  is  their  hatred  of  the  words  "  Creator" 
and  "  creation,"  that  they  would,  if  possible,  obliter- 
ate them  from  the  dictionary,  and  consign  all  works 
containing  them  to  eternal  oblivion.  * 

The  Vatican  Council  on  Creation.  — ^^'^    Hyj)/i^ 

For  a  clear  and  succinct  statement  of  Catholic 
doctrine,  in  respect  of  God  as  Creator  of  all  things, 
as  well  for  an  expression  of  the  Church  regarding  the 
errors  of  Materialism  and  Pantheism  now  so  rife,  we 
can  have  nothing  better  or  more  pertinent  to  our  pres- 
ent subject  than  the  constitution  and  canons  of  the 
Vatican  Council:    De  Deo  Rerum  Omnium  Creator e. 

The  "  Dogmatic  Constitution  of  the  Catholic 
Faith,"  in  reference  to  "  God,  the  Creator  of  all 
things,"  reads  as  follows :  "  The  Holy  Catholic 
Apostolic  Roman  Church  believes  and  confesses,  that 


' "  In  properly  scientific  works,"  sajs  Buchner,  who  de- 
clares that  ''  science  must  necessarily  be  atheistic,"  "  the  word 
[God]  will  seldom  be  met  with  ;  for,  in  scientific  matters  the 
word  'God'  is  only  another  expression  for  our  ignorance." 
"  Man  in  the  Past,  Present,  and  Future,"  p.  329. 


222  EVOLUTION  AXD  DOGMA. 

.  there  is  one  true  and  living  God,  Creator  and  Lord 
of  heaven  and  earth,  Almighty,  Eternal,  Immense, 
Incomprehensible,  Infinite,  in  intelligence,  in  will, 
and  in  all  perfection,  who,  as  being  one,  sole,  abso- 
lutely simple  and  immutable  spiritual  substance,  is 
to  be  declared  as  really  and  essentially  distinct  from 
the  world,  of  supreme  beatitude  in  and  from  Him- 
self, and  ineffably  exalted  above  all  things  which 
exist,  or  are  conceivable,  except  Himself. 

"  This  one  only  true  God,  of  His  own  goodness 
and  Almighty  power,  not  for  the  increase  or  acquire- 
ment of  His  own  happiness,  but  to  manifest  His 
perfection  by  the  blessings  which  He  bestows  on 
creatures,  and  with  absolute  freedom  of  counsel, 
created  out  of  nothing,  from  the  very  beginning  of 
time,  both  the  spiritual  and  the  corporeal  creature, 
to  wit,  the  angelical  and  the  mundane,  and  afterward 
the  human  nature,  as  partaking  in  a  sense  of  both, 
consisting  of  spirit  and  body." 

But  the  canons  of  the  Council  relating  to  God 
as  Creator  of  all  things,  are,  if  anything,  stronger 
and  more  explicit  than  what  precedes. 

They  are  as  follows  : 

**i.  If  anyone  shall  deny  one  true  God,  Creator 
and  Lord  of  things  visible  and  invisible ,  let  him  be 
'  -^  anathema. 

"  2.  If  anyone  shall  not  be  ashamed  to  affirm 
that,  except  matter,  nothing  exists;  let  him  be 
anathema. 

"  3.  If  anyone  shall  say  that  the  substance  and 
essence  of  God  and  of  all  things  is  one  and  the  same  ; 
let  him  be  anathema. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORY.  223 

"  4.  If  anyone  shall  say  that  infinite  things,  both 
corporeal  and  spiritual,  or  at  least  spiritual,  have 
emanated  from  the  Divine  substance  ;  or  that  the 
Divine  Essence  by  the  manifestation  and  evolution 
of  Itself  becomes  all  things ;  or  lastly,  that  God  is 
universal  or  indefinite  being,  which  by  determining 
itself  constitutes  the  universality  of  things,  distinct 
according  to  genera,  species  and  individuals  ;  let  him 
be  anathema. 

"  5.  If  anyone  confess  not  that  the  world  and  all 
things  which  are  contained  in  it,  both  spiritual  and 
material,  have  been,  in  their  whole  substance,  pro- 
duced by  God  out  of  nothing  ;  or  shall  say  that 
God  created,  not  by  His  will  free  from  all  necessity, 
but  by  a  necessity  equal  to  the  necessity  whereby 
He  loves  Himself ;  or  shall  deny  that  the  world  was 
made  for  the  glory  of  God ;  let  him  be  anathema." 

We  have  here  in  a  nutshell  the  Catholic  doctrine 
of  creation,  as  well  as  an  authoritative  pronounce- 
ment, which  cannot  be  mistaken,  respecting  the 
attitude  of  the  Church  towards  the  Atheism,  Mate- 
rialism and  Pantheism  which  have  infected  so  many 
minds  in  our  time,  and  exerted  such  a  blighting 
influence  on  contemporary  science. 

Meaning  of  the  Word  "  Nature." 

Knowing,  now,  in  what  sense  we  may  interpret 
the  word  "  creation,"  in  what  sense  it  must  be  under- 
stood according  to  Catholic  teaching,  we  next  pro- 
ceed to  the  discussion  of  the  word  "  nature,"  about 
which  so  much  crass  ignorance  prevails,  even  among 


224  E  VOL  UTION  AXD  DOGMA. 

those  who  employ  it  most  frequently,  and  whom  it 
behooves  to  have  clear  ideas  as  to  its  import. 

"  Nature  "  is  frequently  employed  to  designate 
"  the  material  and  spiritual  universe  as  distinguished 
from  the  Creator ; "  to  indicate  the  "  world  of  sub- 
stance whose  laws  are  cause  and  effect  ; "  or  to 
signalize  "  the  aggregate  of  the  powers  and  proper- 
ties of  all  things."  It  is  used  to  signify  "  the  forces 
or  processes  of  the  material  world,  conceived  as  an 
agency  intermediate  between  the  Creator  and  the 
world,  producing  all  organisms,  and  preserving  the 
regular  order  of  things."  In  this  sense  it  is  often 
personified  and  made  to  embody  the  old  gnostic 
notion  of  a  demiurge,  or  an  archon  ;  a  subordinate, 
creative  deity  who  evolved  from  chaos  the  corporeal 
and  animated  world,  but  was  inferior  to  the  infinite 
God,  the  Creator  of  the  world  of  spirits.  It  is  made 
to  refer  to  the  "  original,  wild,  undomesticated  con- 
dition of  an  animal  or  a  plant,"  or  to  "  the  primitive 
condition  of  man  antecedent  to  institutions,  espe- 
cially to  political  institutions,"  as  when,  for  instance, 
we  speak  of  animals  and  plants  being  found,  or  men 
living  in  a  state  of  nature.  It  likewise  distinguishes 
that  which  is  conformed  to  truth  and  reality  "  from 
that  which  is  forced,  artificial,  conventional,  or  re- 
mote from  actual  experience." 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  many  meanings  of 
the  word  "  nature,"  and  yet  they  are  quite  sufficient 
to  show  us  how  important  it  is  that  we  should  al- 
ways be  on  our  guard  lest  the  term,  so  often  ambig- 
uous and  so  easily  misapplied,  lead  us  into  grave 
mistakes,  if  not  dangerous  errors.     In  works  on  nat- 


M/SCONCEPTIONS  OF  THE  OR  7'.  225 

ural  and  physical  science,  where  the  word  "  nature  " 
is  of  such  frequent  occurrence,  and  where  it  pos- 
sesses such  diverse  meanings,  having  often  different 
significations  in  a  single  paragraph,  there  is  a  special 
danger  of  misconception.  Here,  unless  particular 
attention  be  given  to  the  changed  meanings  of  the 
term,  it  becomes  a  cloak  for  the  most  specious  fal- 
lacies, and  a  prolific  source  of  the  most  extravagant 
paralogisms. 

Any  one  of  the  diverse  meanings  of  the  word"  na- 
ture," as  just  given,  is  liable  to  be  misconstrued  by 
the  unwary.  But  the  chief  source  of  mischief  with 
incautious  readers  arises  from  the  habit  scientific 
writers  have,  of  indiscriminately  personifying  nature 
on  all  occasions ;  of  speaking  of  it  as  if  it  were  a  single 
and  distinct  entity,  producing  all  the  various  phe- 
nomena of  the  visible  universe,  and  of  referring  to 
it  as  one  of  the  causes  that  "  fabricate  this  corporeal 
and  sensible  world  ; "  as  a  kind  of  an  independent 
deity  "  which,  being  full  of  reasons  and  powers, 
orders  and  presides  over  all  mundane  affairs." 

When  poets  personify  nature  there  is  no  danger 
of  misconception.  In  their  case  the  figurative  use 
of  the  term  is  allowed  and  expected.  Thus,  when 
Bryant  tells  us  that  nature  speaks  "a  various  lan- 
guage," or  when  he  bids  us  — 

"  Go  forth  under  the  open  sky,  and  list 
To  nature's  teachings ; " 
or  when  Longfellow  declares  that — 

"No  tears 
Dim  the  sweet  look  that  nature  wears," 
we  understand   at    once   that    "  nature "    is   but   a 

E.-is 


226  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

poetical  fiction  ;  and  that  the  term  is  to  be  inter- 
preted in  a  metaphorical  and  not  in  a  literal  sense. 

With  naturalists,  however,  and  philosophers,  who 
are  supposed  to  employ  a  more  exact  terminology, 
such  a  figurative  use  of  language  cannot  fail,  with 
the  generality  of  readers,  to  be  both  misleading  and 
mischievous. 

Darwin,  and  writers  of  his  school,  are  continually 
telling  us  of  the  useful  variety  of  animals  and  plants 
given  to  man  "  by  the  hand  of  '  nature,'  "  and  recount- 
ing how  "  'nature'  selects  only  'for  the  good  of  the 
being  which  she  tends,'  "  how  "  every  selected  char- 
acter is  fully  exercised  by  her,"  and  how  "  natural 
selection  entails  divergence  of  character  and  ex- 
tinction of  less  improved  forms."  Huxley  loves  to 
dilate  on  how  " '  nature  '  supplied  the  club-mosses 
which  made  coal,"  how  she  invests  carbonic  acid, 
water,  and  ammonia  "  in  new  forms  of  life,  feeding 
with  them  the  plants  that  now  live."  He  assures 
us  that  **  thrifty  *  nature,'  surely  no  prodigal !  but 
the  most  notable  of  housekeepers,"  is  "  never  in  a 
hurry,  and  seems  to  have  had  always  before  her 
eyes  the  adage, '  Keep  a  thing  long  enough,  and  you 
will  find  a  use  for  it ; ' "  that  "  it  was  only  the  other 
day,  so  to  speak,  that  she  turned  a  new  creature 
out  of  her  workshop,  who,  by  degrees,  acquired 
sufficient  wits  to  make  a  fire." 

Nature  and  God. 

Now,  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  all  these  quota- 
tions can  be  understood  in  an  orthodox  sense,  but 
the  fact,  nevertheless,  remains,  that   they  are  not 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THEORY.  227 

always  so  construed,  and  for  the  simple  reason  that 
both  the  writers  from  whom  these  citations  are 
made,  are  avowed  agnostics.  So  far  as  Huxley  and 
Darwin  are  concerned,  there  may  be  a  personal  God, 
the  Creator  of  the  universe ;  but,  they  will  have  it, 
there  is  no  evidence  of  the  existence  of  such  a  Be- 
ing. On  the  contrary,  according  to  their  theory, 
there  is  nothing  but  matter  and  motion,  and  if  they 
do  not,  like  King  Lear,  say:  "Thou,  nature,  art 
my  goddess,"  their  teachings  tend  to  incline  others 
to  the  belief  that  there  does  really  exist  an  entity 
subordinate  to  God,  if  not  independent  of  Him, 
that  produces  all  existing  phenomena,  not  only  in 
the  world  of  matter,  but  also  in  the  world  of  spirit. 

It  is,  then,  against  this  constant  misuse  of  the 
word  "nature,"  and  especially  against  the  many 
false  theories  which  are  based  on  the  misapprehen- 
sion of  its  true  significance,  that  it  behooves  us  to 
be  constantly  on  our  guard.  Errors  of  the  most 
dangerous  character  creep  in  under  the  cover  of  am- 
biguous phraseology,  and  the  poison  of  false  doc- 
trine is  unconsciously  imbibed,  even  by  the  most 
cautious.  We  may,  if  we  will,  personify  nature,  but, 
if  we  do  so,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  nature,  with 
all  her  powers  and  processes,  is  but  a  creature  of 
Omnipotence ;  that  far  from  being  merely  an  in- 
ward, self-organizing,  plastic  life  in  matter,  inde- 
pendent of  God,  as  was  asserted  by  the  hylozoist, 
Strato  of  Lampsacus,  nature,  as  good  old  Chaucer 
phrases  it,  is  but  "  the  vicar  of  the  Almightie  Lord." 

"  What  else,"  asks  Seneca,  "  is  nature,  but  God, 
and  a  certain  Divine  purpose  manifested  in  the  world? 


d28  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA, 

You  may,  at  pleasure,  call  this  Author  of  the  world 
by  another  name." '  Again,  in  referring  to  the  Deity, 
under  the  name  of  Jupiter,  he  inquires,  "Wilt  thou 
call  Him  nature?  Thou  wilt  not  sin.  For  it  is  from 
Him  that  all  things  are  born,  and  by  whose  Spirit 
we  live."*  All  this,  and  more,  is  affirmed  with  equal 
beauty  and  terseness  by  the  "  Christian  Cicero,"  Lac- 
tantius:  "If  nature,"  he  asks,  "does  all  that  she 
is  said  to  do ;  if  she  everywhere  displays  evidences 
of  power,  intelligence,  design,  wisdom  ;  why  call  her 
nature,  and  not  God?"° 

Having  explained  the  meaning  of  the  words 
"creation,"  and  "nature,"  we  are  now  prepared  to 
consider  the  subject  of  Evolution  in  relation  to  the 
teachings  of  faith.  Here,  however,  we  must  again 
distinguish,  and  explain.  There  are  evolutionists,  and 
evolutionists.  There  are  evolutionists  who  give  us 
in  a  new  guise  the  old  errors  of  Atheism,  Materialism 
and  Pantheism  ;  there  are  others  who  assert  that  our 
knowledge  is  confined  to  the  phenomenal  world,  and 
that,  consequently,  we  can  know  nothing  about  the 


*  "  Quid  enim  aliud  est  natura  quam  Deus  et  di\  ina  ratio  toti 
mundo  et  partibus  ejus  inserta  ?  Quoties  voles,  tibi  licet  aliter 
hunc  auctorem  rerum  nostrarum  compellare."  Seneca,  "  De 
Beneficiis."  Lib.  IV,  chap.  i. 

*"  Vis  ilium  naturam  vocare  ?  non  peccabis.  Est  enim  ex 
quo  nata  sunt  omnia,  cujus  Spiritu  vivimus."  "  Natural.  Qusest." 
Lib.  n. 

'"  Natura,  quam  veluti  matrem  esse  reruni  putant,  si  men- 
tem  non  habet,  nihil  efficiet  umquam,  nihil  molietur.  Ubi  enim 
non  est  cogitatio,  nee  motus  est  ullus ;  nee  efficacia.  Si  autem 
concilio  suo  utitur  ad  incipiendum  aliquid,  ratione  ad  disponen- 
dum,  arte  ad  efficiendum,  virtute  ad  consummandum,  potestate 
ad  regendum,  et  eontinendum,  cur  natura  potius  quam  Deus 
nominetur."     "  De  Ira  Dei,"  cap.  x. 


MISCONCEPTIONS  OF  THBORT.  229 

absolute  and  the  unconditioned ;  and  there  are 
others  still,  who  contend  that  Evolution  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  Theism,  and  maintain  that  we  can  hold 
all  the  cardinal  principles  of  Evolution  without  sac- 
rificing a  single  jot  or  tittle  of  Dogma  or  revelation. 
For  the  sake  of  simplicity,  we  shall  designate 
these  three  classes  of  evolutionists  as:  i,  monists  ;  2, 
agnostics  ;  and  3,  theists.  Their  doctrines  are  clearly 
differentiated,  and  naturally  distinguish  three  schools 
of  contemporary  thought,  known  respectively  as:  i, 
Monism ;  2,  Agnosticism  ;  and  3,  Theism.  This  is 
the  most  convenient  and  comprehensive  grouping 
we  can  give,  of  the  tenets  of  the  leading  representa- 
tives of  modern  science  and  philosophy,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  the  most  logical  and  satisfactory.  In 
order  to  secure  as  great  exactness,  and  make  my  ex-  9^ 
position  as  concrete  and  tangible  as  possible,  I  shall, 
when  feasible,  allow  the  chief  exponents  of  Monism,  ' 
Agnosticism,  and  Theism,  to  speak  for  themselves^ 
and  to  present  their  views  in  their  own  words.  This 
will  insure  not  only  greater  accuracy,  but  will  also  be 
fairer,  and  more  in  keeping  with  the  plan  I  have  fol- 
fowed  in  the  preceding  pages. 


f' 


CHAPTER  II. 

MONISM   AND   EVOLUTION. 
Hseckel  and  Monism. 

HISTORICALLY  considered,  Monism,  as  a  sys- 
tem of  philosophy,  is  as  old  as  speculative 
thought.  It  has,  however,  had  various  and  even 
contradictory  meanings.  Etymologically,  it  indi- 
cates a  system  of  thought,  which  refers  all  phenom- 
ena of  the  spiritual  and  physical  worlds  to  a  single 
principle.  We  have,  accordingly,  idealistic  Monism, 
which  makes  matter  and  all  its  phenomena  but 
modifications  of  mind  ;  materialistic  Monism,  which 
resolves  everything  into  matter ;  and,  finally,  the 
system  of  those  who  conceive  of  a  substance  that 
is  neither  mind  nor  matter,  but  is  the  underlying 
principle  or  substantial  ground  of  both.  In  each 
and  all  of  its  forms.  Monism  is  opposed  to  the  phil- 
osophical Dualism  which  recognizes  two  principles  — 
matter  and  spirit. 

The  Monism,  however,  with  which  we  have  to 
deal  here,  is  not  the  idealism  of  Spinoza,  Berkeley, 
Hume,  Hegel  or  Schopenhauer,  nor  the  atheistic 
Materialism  of  D'Holbach  and  La  Mettrie,  which 
was  but  a  modified  form  of  Epicureanism,  but  rather 
a  later  development  of  these  errors.  An  outgrowth 
of  recent  speculations  in  the  natural  and  physical 

(230) 


MONISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  231 

sciences,  its  origin  is  to  be  traced  to  certain  hypoth- 
eses connected  with  some  of  the  manifold  modern 
theories  of  Evolution. 

The  universally-acknowledged  protagonist  of  con- 
temporary Monism  is  Ernst  Haeckel,  professor  of 
biology  in  the  University  of  Jena.  He  is  often 
called  "  the  German  Darwin,"  and  is  regarded,  with 
Darwin  and  Wallace,  as  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
theory  of  organic  Evolution.  From  the  first  appear- 
ance of  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species,"  he  has  been 
a  strong  and  persistent  advocate  of  the  development 
theory,  and  did  more  than  anyone  else  to  popularize 
it  in  Germany  and  throughout  the  continent  of 
Europe.  He  has,  however,  gone  much  further  than 
the  English  naturalist,  in  his  inductions  from  the 
premises  supplied  by  the  originator  of  the  theory  of 
natural  selection.  He  draws  conclusions  from  Dar- 
winism at  which  many  of  its  advocates  stand  aghast, 
and  which,  if  carried  out  in  practice,  would  not  only 
subvert,  religion  and  morahty,  but  would  sap  the 
very  foundations  of  civilized  society.  Anti-monists, 
of  course,  contend  that  Haeckel's  conclusions  are 
not  valid,  and  that  there  is  nothing  either  in  Dar- 
winism, or  Evolution,  when  properly  understood, 
which  warrants  the  dread  inductions  which  have 
been  drawn  from  them  by  the  Jena  naturalist. 

To  understand  the  nature  of  Haeckel's  doctrines, 
and  to  appreciate  the  secret  of  his  influence,  we 
must  consider  him  in  a  three-fold  capacity  —  as  a 
scientist,  as  a  philosopher,  and  as  the  hierophant 
of  a  new  form  of  religion,  "  the  religion  of  the 
future." 


232  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Haeckel   as  a  Scientist. 

As  a  scientist,  especially  as  a  biologist,  he  deserv- 
edly occupies  a  high  place.  Of  unquestioned  ability, 
of  untiring  industry,  and  of  remarkable  talent  for 
original  research,  he  is  distinguished  also  for  a  cer- 
tain intrepidity  and  assertiveness  in  promulgating 
his  views,  which  have  given  him,  not  only  a  reputa- 
tion, but  a  notoriety  which  is  world-wide.  His  best 
work,  probably,  has  been  done  in  connection  with  his 
investigations  of  some  of  the  lower  forms  of  life, 
especially  the  protista,  the  radiolaria,  and  the  calca- 
reous sponges.  His  researches  in  this  direction  would 
alone  have  been  sufficient  to  make  him  famous  in 
the  world  of  science.  But  concerning  these  researches 
the  general  public  knows  little  or  nothing.  The 
works  of  Haeckel  which  have  made  his  name  familiar 
the  world  over,  are  his  popular  expositions  of  evolu- 
tionary doctrines,  viz.,  his  '*  Natiirliche  Schopfungs- 
geschichte,"  or  "  Natural  History  of  Creation,"  and 
"Anthropogenie,"or  "  Evolution  of  Man."  In  these 
works,  his  chief  endeavor  is  to  present  the  theory  of 
Evolution  in  a  popular  form,  and  to  give  the  evi- 
dences on  which  it  is  founded. 

Haeckel's  Nature-Philosophy, 

But  he  does  more  than  this.  Not  satisfied  with 
being  an  expounder  of  the  truths  of  science,  he 
promulgates  views  on  philosophy  and  religion  which 
are  as  radical  as  they  are  irrational.  He  appears  not 
only  as  a  professor  of  biology,  but  poses  as  the 
founder  of  a  new  school  of  philosophy,  and  as  the 
high-priest  of  a  new  system  of  religion.    He  commits 


MONISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  233 

the  error  into  which  so  many  have  fallen,  of  con- 
founding the  methods  of  metaphysics  with  those  of 
experimental  science,  and  of  mistaking  a  priori  rea- 
soning for  strict  inductive  proof. 

The  name  which  Haeckel  gives  his  nature-philos- 
ophy, as  he  loves  to  call  it,  is,  as  already  stated.  Mon- 
ism. The  word  "  Monism  "  is  often  attributed  to  the 
Jena  professor,  but  erroneously,  as  it  was  coined  by 
Wolf  long  before.  Haeckel  has,  however,  given  it  a 
new  meaning,  and  the  one  which  is  now  generally 
understood  when  Monism  is  in  question.  He  has, 
as  he  tells  us,  chosen  this  term  so  as  to  eliminate  the 
errors  attaching  to  Theism,  Spiritualism,  and  Mate- 
rialism, as  well  as  to  the  Positivism  of  Comte,  the 
Synthetism  of  Spencer,  the  Cosmism  of  Fiske,  and 
other  like  evolutionary  systems  of  philosophy.  But 
here  I  shall  let  Haeckel  speak  for  himself. 

In  his  "  Evolution  of  Man,"  '  he  declares  that 
"  this  mechanical  or  monistic  philosophy  asserts  that 
everywhere  the  phenomena  of  human  life,  as  well  as 
those  of  external  nature,  are  under  the  control  of 
fixed  and  unalterable  laws ;  that  there  is  everywhere 
a  necessary  causal  connection  between  phenomena, 
and  that,  accordingly,  the  whole  knowable  universe 
forms  one  undivided  whole,  a  *  monon.'  It  further 
asserts  that  all  phenomena  are  produced  by  mechan- 
ical causes,  causa  efficientes,  not  by  prearranged,  pur- 
posive causes,  causes  ^na/es.  Hence,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  '  free-will '  in  the  usual  sense.  On  the  con- 
trary, in  the  light  of  this  monistic  conception  of 
nature,  even  those  phenomena  which  we  have  been 

1  Vol.  II,  p.  455. 


234  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA . 

accustomed  to  regard  as  most  free  and  independent, 
the  expressions  of  the  human  will,  appear  as  subject 
to  fixed  laws  as  any  other  natural  phenomenon.  In- 
deed, each  unprejudiced  and  searching  test  applied 
to  the  action  of  our  free  will,  shows  that  the  latter  is 
never  really  free,  but  is  always  determined  by  pre- 
vious causal  conditions,  which  are  eventually  refera- 
ble either  to  heredity  or  to  adaptation.  Accordingly, 
we  cannot  assent  to  the  popular  distinction  between 
nature  and  spirit.  Spirit  exists  everywhere  in  nature, 
and  we  know  of  no  spirit  outside  of  nature."  Else- 
where, he  tells  us  that  "  unitary  philosophy,  or  Mon- 
ism,  is  neither  extremely  materialistic,  nor  extremely 
spiritualistic,  but  resembles  rather  a  union  and  com- 
bination of  these  opposed  principles,  in  that  it  con- 
ceives all  nature  as  one  whole,  and  nowhere  recog- 
nizes any  but  mechanical  causes.  Binary  philosophy, 
on  the  other  hand,  or  Dualism,  regards  nature  and 
spirit,  matter  and  force,  inorganic  and  organic  na- 
ture, as  distinct  and  independent  existences."  * 

Again,  he  assures  us  that  the  theory  of  develop- 
ment of  Darwin  must,  "  if  carried  out  logically,  lead 
us  to  the  monistic,  or  mechanical,  causal,  conception 
of  the  universe.  In  opposition  to  the  dualistic,  or 
teleological  conception  of  nature,  our  theory  con- 
siders organic,  as  well  as  inorganic  bodies,  to  be  the 
necessary  products  of  natural  forces.  It  does  not 
see  in  every  species  of  animal  and  plant  the  em- 
bodied thought  of  a  personal  Creator,  but  the  ex- 
pression, for  the  time  being,  of  a  necessarily  active 
cause,  that  is,  of  a  mechanical  cause,  causa   efficiens. 

^  Op.  cit.,  vol.  II,  p  461. 


MONISM  A  ND  E  VOL  UTION.  235 

Where  teleological  Dualism  seeks  the  thoughts  of  a 
capricious  Creator  in  the  miracles  of  creation,  causal 
Monism  finds  in  the  process  of  development  the 
necessary  effects  of  eternal,  immutable  laws  of 
nature."* 

Five  Propositions   of  Hseckel. 

These  quotations  would  seem  to  be  sufficiently 
explicit,  but  Haeckel,  not  satisfied  with  such  gen- 
eral statements,  has  been  pleased  to  lay  down  five 
theses,  respecting  the  theory  of  Evolution,  which  ad- 
mit neither  doubt  nor  ambiguity.  They  are  worded 
as  follows : 

1.  " The  general  doctrine  [of  Evolution]  appears 
to  be  already  unassailably  founded. 

2.  "  Thereby  every  supernatural  creation  is  com- 
pletely  excluded. 

3.  "  Transformism  and  the  theory  of  descent  are 
inseparable  constituent  parts  of  the  doctrine  of  Evo- 
lution. 

4.  "The  necessary  consequence  of  this  last  con- 
clusion is  the  descent  of  man  from  a  series  of  verte- 
brates. 

5.  "  The  belief  in  an  '  immortal  soul,'  and.  in  *  a 
personal  God  *  are  therewith — i.  e.,  with  the  four  pre- 
ceding statements — completely  ununitable  \ydllig 
unvereinbar\y  * 

Such,  then,  in  brief  compass,  is  Monism  as  ex- 
pounded by  its  latest  and  most  applauded  doctor 
and  prophet.     Such  is  Haeckelism,  about  which  so 

*  "  History  of  Creation,"  vol.  I,  p.  34. 

'"Evolution  in  Science,  Philosophy  and  Art,"  p.  454 


236  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

much  is  said,  but  concerning  which  there  is  so  little 
accurate  knowledge.  As  is  manifest  from  the  above 
five  propositions,  it  is  but  a  neologistic  formulation 
of  old  errors ;  a  recrudescence,  in  modern  scientific 
terminology,  of  the  teachings  of  the  Ionian  and 
Greek  materialistic  schools ;  a  rechauffe  of  the  well- 
known  atomic  theory  of  Leucippus  and  Democritus 
of  Abdera ;  a  mixtum  compositum  of  science,  philoso- 
phy and  theology ;  an  olla  podrida  compounded  of 
the  most  glaring  errors  and  absurdities  of  Atheism, 
Materialism  and  Pantheism,  ancient  and  modern. 

God,  and  the  Soul. 

God,  according  to  Haeckel,  is  but  a  useless  hy- 
pothesis. A  personal  *'  Creator  is  only  an  idealized 
organism,  endowed  with  human  attributes ;  a  gross 
anthropomorphic  conception,  corresponding  with  a 
low  animal  stage  of  development  of  the  human  or- 
ganism." Haeckel's  idea  of  God,  an  idea  which,  he 
assures  us,  "  belongs  to  the  future,"  is  the  idea  which 
was  expressed  by  Giordano  Bruno  when  he  asserted 
that :  "A  spirit  exists  in  all  things,  and  no  body  is  so 
small  but  contains  a  part  of  the  Divine  substance 
within  itself,  by  which  it  is  animated."  In  the  words 
of  one  of  Haeckel's  school,  the  true  God  is  the 
totality  of  the  correlated  universe,  the  Divine  reality, 
and  there  is,  therefore,  "no  possible  room  for  an 
extra-mundane  God,  a  ghost,  or  a  spook,  anyway  or 
anywhere." 

The  atom,  eternal  and  uncreated,  is  the  sole  God 
of  the  monist.  Haeckel's  atom,  however,  is  not  the 
atom  of  the  chemist — an  infinitesimally  small  par- 


MONISM  AND  E  VOL UTION.  287 

tide  of  inorganic  matter,  the  smallest  constituent 
part  of  a  molecule.  It  is  far  more.  It  is  a  living 
thing,  endowed  not  only  with  life  but  also  possessed 
of  a  soul.  And  this  is  no  mere  hypothesis  with 
him.  It  is,  he  will  have  it,  a  demonstrated  doctrine, 
an  established  fact.  "An  atom  soul,"  "a  molecule 
soul,"  "  a  carbon  soul,"  are  among  the  first  corollar- 
ies of  Monism,  which,  one  of  its  advocates  tells  us, 
is  now  "  irrefragable,  invincible,  inexpugnable." 

Organic  and  Inorganic  Matter. 

There  is,  in  Haeckel's  estimation,  no  essential  dif- 
ference between  inorganic  and  organic  matter;  no 
impassable  chasm  between  brute  and  animated  sub- 
stance. All  vital  phenomena,  especially  the  funda- 
mental phenomena  of  nutrition  and  propagation,  are 
but  physico-chemical  processes,  identical  in  kind 
with,  although  differing  in  degree  from,  those  which 
obtain  in  the  formation  of  crystals  and  ordinary 
chemical  compounds.  Like  D'Holbach,  he  identifies 
mental  operations  with  physical  movements;  and, 
like  Robinet,  he  attributes  the  moral  sense  to  the 
action  of  special  nerve-fibres.  His  Weltseele  is  not 
like  that  of  Schelling,  a  spiritual  principle  or  intelli- 
gence, but  a  blind  unconscious  force  which  always 
accompanies,  and  is  inseparably  connected  with, 
matter. 

According  to  his  views,  sensation  is  a  product  of 
matter  in  movement,  and  consciousness  is  but  a 
summation  of  the  rudimentary  feeling  of  ultimate 
sentient  atoms.  The  genesis  of  mind  is  thus  en- 
tirely a  mechanical  process,  and  the  conceptions  of 


288  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

genius  are  but  the  result  of  the  clash  of  atoms  and 
the  impact  of  molecules.  Intellectual  work  is  the 
correlative  of  certain  brain-waves ;  thrills  of  grati- 
tude, and  love  of  friends  and  country,  are  mere 
oscillations  of  infinitesimal  particles  of  brute  matter. 
Pleasure  and  pain,  joy  and  sorrow,  are  the  direct 
product  of  vibratory  motion,  and  the  difference  in 
the  nature  of  these  emotions  arises  solely  from  the 
difference  in  the  character  of  the  generating  shakes 
and  quivers.  Like  Cabanis,  Haeckel  makes  thought 
a  secretion  of  the  brain,  and  holds,  with  Vogt,  that 
the  brain  secretes  thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile. 
With  Moleschott,  he  would  assert  that  thought  is 
dependent  on  phosphorus,  and  with  Biichner  he 
would  declare  it  to  be  a  product  of  nervous  elec- 
tricity. In  the  words  of  Caro,  he  teaches  that :  "  In 
matter,  resides  the  principle  of  movement ;  in  move- 
ment, is  the  reason  of  life ;  in  life,  is  the  reason  of 
thought."  Hence,  in  returning  to  the  first  term  of 
the  series,  we  observe  that  thought  and  life  are  only 
forms  of  movement,  which  is  the  original  inherent 
property  of  eternal  matter.' 

With  Hugo,  Haeckel  would  exclaim : 

'•  Learn  that  everything  knows  its  law,  its  end, 
its  way ;     .     .     . 

That  everything   in  creation  has  consciousness. 

Winds,  waves,  flames, 

Trees,   reeds,   rocks,   all   are   alive  I     All   have 
souls     ... 

Compassionate    the   prisoner,   but   compassionate 

the  bolt ; 

*  "Le  Materialisme  et  la  Science,"  p.  ii6. 


MONISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  239 

Compassionate  the  chain,  in  dark,  unhealthy  prisons ; 
The  axe  and  the  block  are  two  doleful  beings, 
The  axe  suffers  as  much  as  the  body,  the  block 
as  much  as  the  head."  ' 

The   Religion  of  the  Future. 

Such,  in  brief  outline,  are  the  leading  conclu- 
sions of  Haeckel's  teachings  in  science  and  philoso- 
phy. What,  now,  are  his  views  on  religion  ?  For  his 
friends  and  disciples  assert  that  he  is  not  only  a 
great  scientist,  and  a  great  philosopher,  but  that  he 
is  also  to  be  saluted  as  the  prophet  and  high-priest 
of  the  religion  of  science,  which  means,  we  are 
assured,  the  religion  of  the  future.  According  to  a 
recent  exponent  of  Haeckelism,  "  We  find  the  reli- 
gious history  of  our  race  to  consist  of  a  gradual  Evo- 
lution of  its  leading  peoples  from  a  broad  base  of 
general  Animism  and  Fetichism,  thence  to  astrology, 
thence  to  Polytheism,  thence  to  Monotheism,  and 
thence  to  Scientism,  expressed  chiefly  to  us  in  the 
Pantheism  of  Goethe,  the  Positivism  of  Comte,  the 
Synthetism  of  Spencer,  the  Cosmism  of  Fiske,  and 
finally  by  the  Monism  of  Haeckel.""     His  new  form 

■"  Sache  que  tout  connait  sa  loi,  son  but,  sa  route ;     .     . 
Que  tout  a  conscience  en  la  creation     ... 

Vents,  ondes,  flamines, 

Arbres,  roseaux,  rochers,  tout  vit !     Tout  est  plein  d'ames. 
Ayez  pitie  !     Voyez  ames  dans  les  choses     .     .     . 
Plaignez  le  prisonnier,  mais  plaignez  le  verrou ; 
Plaignez  la  chaine  au  fond  des  bagnes  insalubres  ; 
La  bache  et  le  billot  sont  deux  fitres  lugubres ; 
La  hache  souflfre  autant  que  le  corps,  le  billot 
Souffre  autant  que  la  tfite." 

"  Les  Contemplations."  Tom.  II,  p.  315. 
*"  Evolution  in  Science,  Philosophy  and  Art,"  p.  41. 


240  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA 

of  religion,  we  are  told,  "  rises  above  all  religions  as 
the  culmination  of  all.  If  anything  can  be,  it  is,  the 
universal  faith,"  and  this  because  "  it  is  based  upon 
verified  science." 

Truth  to  tell,  however,  Haeckel's  own  views  con- 
cerning  religion  are  as  crude  and  as  extravagant  as 
many  of  his  expressed  opinions  respecting  philoso- 
phy and  science.  The  monistic  religion  of  nature, 
he  informs  us,  "  which  we  should  regard  as  the  ver- 
itable religion  of  the  future,  is  not,  as  are  all  the 
religions  of  the  churches,  in  contradiction,  but  in 
harmony  with  a  rational  knowledge  of  nature. 
While  the  latter  have  no  other  source  than  illusions 
and  superstitions,  the  former  reposes  on  truth  and 
science.  Simple,  natural  religion,  based  on  a  per- 
fect knowledge  of  nature  and  its  inexhaustible 
treasure  of  revelations,  will,  in  the  future,  impress  on 
Evolution  a  seal  of  nobility,  which  the  religious 
dogmas  of  divers  peoples  have  been  incapable  of 
giving  it.  For  these  dogmas  rest  on  a  blind  faith  in 
obscure  mysteries,  and  in  mythical  revelations  formu- 
lated by  priestly  castes.  Our  epoch,  which  shall 
have  had  the  glory  of  achieving  the  most  brilliant 
result  of  human  research,  the  doctrine  of  Evolution, 
will  be  celebrated  in  coming  ages  as  having  inaugu- 
rated a  new  and  fecund  era  for  the  progress  of 
humanity;  an  era  characterized  by  the  triumph 
of  freedom  of  investigation  over  the  domination  of 
authority,  through  the  noble  and  puissant  influence 
of  monistic  philosophy."  ' 


"'  Schopfungsgeschichte,''  7th  edition,  p.  6S1. 


MONISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  241 

This  brief  extract  from  Haeckel's  inept  state- 
ments about  religion,  concerning  which,  it  is  mani- 
fest, he  is  crassly  ignorant,  will  relieve  us  from  the  ne- 
cessity of  following  further  this  trumpeted  reformer 
of  religion  and  omniscient  seer  of  Monism.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  collect  together,  in  the  same  space,  a 
greater  number  of  misstatements  of  fact,  more  glar- 
ing absurdities,  or  more  preposterous  propositions, 
than  those  contained  in  the  foregoing  quotation 
from  one  of  his  best-known  and  most  popular  works. 
I  shall  not  attempt  categorically  to  refute  his  errors 
of  history  and  philosophy,  of  science  and  theology, 
as  this  is  beyond  the  scope  of  the  present  work. 
Neither  shall  I  waste  time  in  indicating  wherein  he 
has  put  himself,  especially  in  matters  of  theology 
and  religion,  against  the  unanimous  teaching  of  the 
saints  and  sages  of  all  time.  A  mere  presentation 
of  his  errors,  in  a  clear  light  and  in  bold  relief,  is  a 
sufficient,  if  not  the  best  refutation,  for  all  reasona- 
ble men.  Haeckel's  vagaries  but  emphasize  once 
more  a  fact  which  has  often  been  signalized  —  the 
danger  incurred  by  specialists,  particularly  by  mere 
physicists  and  biologists,  when  they  attempt  to  dis- 
cuss matters  of  which  they  are  not  only  ignorant, 
but  which  are  entirely  foreign  to  their  ordinary  trend 
of  thought,  and  when  they  pass  the  frontiers  with 
which  they  may  be  familiar,  and,  entering  upon  a  do- 
main of  knowledge  with  which  they  are  entirely  unac- 
quainted, seek  the  discussion  of  topics  for  which  both 
their  temper  and  education  totally  disqualify  them. 

Such  a  congeries  of  errors,  scientific,  philosophic 
and  theologic,  error  personified,  as  it  were,  as  that 


24^  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOG  MA . 

which  we  have  just  been  contemplating,  forcibly  re- 
minds one  of  the  words  of  the  Mantuan  bard  when 
he  describes  the  giant  Polyphemus,  whose  solitary 
orb  was  burnt  out  by  Hercules, 

•*  Monstrum  horrendum,  informe,  ingens,  cui 
lumen  ademptum.'" 

But  if  Haeckel  is  the  accomplished  biologist  he  is 
reputed  to  be,  if  he  is  one  of  the  leading  representa- 
tives of  contemporary  science,  and  even  his  enemies 
will  not  deny  that  he  is  all  this,  how  comes  it,  it 
will  be  asked,  that  he  has  fallen  into  so  many  errors 
and  that  he  has  so  many  enthusiastic  followers? 


•  "  A  frightful,  misshapen,  huge  monster  deprived  of 
sight." 

In  his  latest  work,  "  The  Confession  of  Faith  of  a  Man  of 
Science,"  Hreckel  gives  expression  to  absurdities  which  are 
almost  incredible.  It  would,  indeed,  seem  impossible  that  any 
sane  man,  much  less  one  who  pretends  to  be  a  leader  in  science 
and  philosophy,  should  be  guilty  of  such  utterances  as  the 
following : 

"  The  Monistic  idea  .  .  .  can  never  recognize  in 
God  a  'personal  being,'  or,  in  other  words,  an  individual  of 
limited  extension  in  space,  or  even  of  human  form.  .  .  . 
Every  atom  is  .  .  .  animated,  and  so  is  the  ether  ;  we  might, 
therefore,  represent  God  as  the  infinite  sum  of  all  natural  forces, 
the  sum  of  all  atomic  forces,  and  all  ether  vibrations.  .  .  . 
•  Homotheism,'  the  anthropomorphic  representation  of  God,  de- 
grades this  loftiest  cosmic  idea  to  that  of  a  gaseous  vertebrate." 
Pp.  78-79. 

Again,  on  p.  92  of  the  same  work,  he  says  :  "  As  the  simpler 
occurrences  of  inorganic  nature,  and  the  more  complicated  phe- 
nomena of  organic  life,  are  alike  reducible  to  the  same  natural 
forces,  and  as,  further,  these  in  their  turn  have  their  foundation 
in  a  simple  primal  principle  pervading  infinite  space,  we  can 
regard  this  last  [the  cosmic  ether]  as  all-comprehending  Divin- 
ity, and  upon  this  found  the  thesis :  '  Belief  in  God  is  recon- 
cilable with  science.'  " 

Similar  unphilosophical  language,  to  use  no  stronger  terms, 
is  found  in  "  The  Religion  of  Science,"  by  Paul  Carus,  the 
chief  trumpet  and  propagandist  of  Hseckelism  in  the  United 
States. 


MONISM  AND  k  VOL  UTION.  243 

For  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  life-work  of 
the  Jena  professor,  and  know  how  blindly  the  multi- 
tude follow  one  who  is  looked  upon  as  an  authority 
in  science,  how  prone  they  are  to  hero  worship,  ther? 
will  be  no  diflficulty  in  answering  those  questions  and 
in  reconciling  what  are,  at  least,  apparent  contradic- 
tions. 

Haeckers   Limitations. 

Haeckel,  no  one  questions  it,  has  achieved  de- 
served eminence  in  his  chosen  field  of  work.  But 
Hjeckel  is  a  specialist,  an  ardent  specialist,  and  his 
limitations  are  very  strongly  marked.  As  a  student 
of  the  lower  forms  of  life,  to  which  he  has  devoted 
the  greater  portion  of  his  time,  he  has  probably  no 
superior,  and  but  few  peers.  But  the  very  ardor  with 
which  he  has  cultivated  science,  and  forced  every- 
thing to  corroborate  a  pet  theory,  has  made  him  one- 
sided and  circumscribed  in  his  views  of  the  cosmos 
as  a  whole,  so  as  practically  to  incapacitate  him  for 
the  discussion  of  general  questions  of  science  and 
philosophy,  and  much  more  those  of  theology. 
Like  all  specialists,  he  suffers  from  intellectual  my- 
opia, and  it  is  almost  inevitable  that  such  should  be 
the  case.  He  examines  everything  as  he  would  a 
microbe  or  a  speck  of  protoplasm,  under  the  ob- 
jective of  his  microscope.  He  applies  the  methods 
of  induction  to  questions  of  metaphysics,  and  con- 
founds the  principles  of  metaphysics  with  the  data  of 
experimental  science.  The  result,  as  might  be  an- 
ticipated, is  to  "  make  confusion  worse  confounded." 
For  such  a  one,  the  only  cure  is  a  broader  knowledge 
and  a  rigid  and  systematic  drill  in  the  fundamental 


844  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

rules  of  dialectics.  Verily,  for  a  specialist  afflicted 
as  Haeckel  is,  and  he  is  but  a  type  of  the  majority 
of  specialists,  it  behooves  him  to  purge — 

"  With  euphrasy  and  rue 
The  visual  nerve,  for  he  hath  much  to  see." 

But  is  this  the  sole  explanation  of  the  manifold 
errors  into  which  the  German  naturalist  has  lapsed, 
and  will  this  account  for  his  false  declamation  against 
religion,  and  his  vehement  denunciation  of  the  Church, 
and  of  what  she  regards  as  most  sacred  ?  It  is  to  be 
feared  not.  There  is  more  than  simple  antipathy  in 
his  case.  There  is  downright  hatred.  Only  on  this 
assumption  can  we  explain  the  use  of  the  violent  and 
blasphemous  language  which  is  of  such  frequent 
occurrence  in  his  more  popular  works. 

As  to  the  reading  public,  their  position  is  not 
difficult  to  understand.  They  are,  as  it  were,  hyp- 
notized, by  what  a  German  writer,  Wiegand,  aptly 
designates,  "  the  confused  movement  of  the  mind  of 
our  age,"  and  are,  so  far  as  their  ability  to  think  and 
judge  for  themselves  goes,  in  a  state  of  chronic  cata- 
lepsy. They  mistake  assertions  for  proof,  theories 
for  science,  and  regard  a  conglomeration  of  neolo- 
gisms, which  explain  nothing,  as  so  much  veritable 
knowledge. 

Verbal  Jugglery, 

The  secret  of  Haeckel's  prestige  and  influence 
with  his  readers,  is  not  due  simply  to  the  extent  of 
his  information  in  his  special  line  of  study,  nortothe 
astonishing  mass  and  variety  of  facts  which  he  dis- 
cusses and  compares,  but  rather  to  his  manner  of 


MONISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  245 

presenting  facts,  and  to  his  adroitness  in  drawing  the 
conclusions  which  suit  him,whether  such  conclusions 
are  warranted  by  the  facts  or  not.  With  Haeckel, 
especially  when  treating  of  his  favorite  topics,  Evo- 
lution and  Monism,  the  wish  is  always  father  to  the 
thought,  and  he  has  a  way  of  convincing  his  readers 
that  he  is  right,  even  when  they  have  reason  to  suspect, 
if  they  are  not  certain,  that  he  is  positively  wrong. 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  for  Haeckel's  success  as 
a  theorist,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  he  is  an  ex- 
pert in  verbal  jugglery,  and  a  consummate  master  in 
the  art  of  sophistry.  Whether  his  use  of  sophism  is  in- 
tentional or  not,  is  not  for  me  to  say.  It  does,  how- 
ever, seem  almost  incredible,  that  anyone  endowed 
with  ordinary  reasoning  powers  could  unconsciously 
fall  into  so  great,  and  so  frequent,  errors  of  logic,  as 
may  be  seen  on  almost  every  page  of  Haeckel's  evo- 
lutionary works.  He  possesses  in  an  eminent  de- 
gree, as  has  been  well  said  of  him,  what  a  French 
prestidigitator  declared  to  be  the  leading  principle  of 
legerdemain,  viz.,  "the  art  of  making  things  appear 
and  disappear."  This  is  true.  What  Robert  Houdin 
is  among  conjurers,  that  is  Haeckel  among  what  the 
Germans  call  the  "  nature-philosophers  "  of  the  pres- 
ent generation. 

A  striking  illustration  of  adroitness  in  verbal 
jugglery  is  given  in  his  genealogy  of  man.  In  his 
genealogical  tree  Haeckel  recognizes  twenty-two 
"form-stages,"  through  which  he  traces  human  an- 
cestry from  monad  to  man,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Laurentian  to  the  Quaternary  Period,  when  homo 
sapiens  first  appeared  on  this  planet. 


246  E  VOL  UTION  A XD  DOGMA . 

In  accordance  with  his  theory  of  Monism, 
Haeckel,  as  might  be  supposed,  is  a  strenuous  advo- 
cate of  spontaneous  generation,  to  which  he  gives 
the  new  names,  plasmogeny  and  autogeny.  His 
chief  reason  for  believing  in  autogeny  is,  that  if  we 
do  not  do  so,  we  must  beheve  in  creation  and  a  Crea- 
tor, which,  according  to  his  notions,  is  both  anti- 
scientific  and  anti-philosophical. 

The  first  product  of  spontaneous  generation  was 
the  moneron,  a  simple  unicellular,  structureless  bit 
of  slime  or  protoplasm,  or,  as  Haeckel  himself  de- 
scribes it,  a  form  of  life  of  such  extreme  simplicity  as 
to  deserve  to  be  called  an  "  organism  without  or- 
gans." It  is  due  to  the  action  of  some  natural  force, 
heat,  electricity,  or  what  not,  on  brute  matter,  and  is 
not  only  the  simplest  form  of  life  that  can  exist,  but 
also  the  simplest  form  conceivable.  No  one,  it  is 
true,  has  ever  seen  a  moneron,  not  even  Haeckel 
himself.  But  this  matters  not.  The  moneron,  if  it 
did  not  exist,  should  have  existed  —  because  theory 
demands  it. 

To  confirm  his  views  regarding  this  first  form- 
stage  of  the  human  ancestral  line,  Haeckel  appeals  to 
the  famous  bathybins,  over  which  Huxley  and  him- 
self went  into  such  ecstasies  for  awhile,  but  which 
eventually  proved  to  be  as  imaginary  as  the  moneron 
itself. 

The  immediate  successor  of  the  monera  in  the 
phylogeny  of  man  were  the  amoebae.  These  differed 
from  the  former  in  having  a  nucleus  in  the  cell-sub- 
stance or  protoplasm.  Both  these  stages  existed  as 
simple  individuals.     They  were,  however,  succeeded 


MON'ISM  A ND  EVOLU TION.  247 

by  what  are  termed  amoeboid  communities,  **  simple 
societies  of  homogeneous,  undifferentiated  cells." 
Under  the  action  of  a  favorable  environment,  these 
amoebae  developed  into  various  larval  or  gastrula 
forms,  and  these,  in  turn,  by  the  action  of  inherent 
forces,  evolved  into  worms,  and  into  animals  similar 
to  our  modern  sea-squirts,  lancelets,  lampreys,  sharks 
and  mud-fish.  The  mud-fish,  or  its  prototype,  a 
kind  of  salamander  fish,  was  followed  by  animals 
nearly  related  to  existing  sirens,  axolotls,  and  by  a 
cross  between  tailed  amphibians  and  beaked  ani- 
mals, the  precursor  of  the  monotremata.  The  next 
in  the  order  of  succession  were  marsupials  or  pouched 
animals,  semi-apes  ;  tailed,  narrow-nosed  apes ;  tail- 
less, narrow-nosed  apes,  or  men-like  apes ;  speechless 
men,  or  ape-like  men  ;  and  finally,  as  the  culmination 
of  all,  the  crown  and  glory  of  the  genealogical  tree, 
whose  germ  was  but  a  simple  speck  of  slime,  or  plas- 
son,  we  have  homo  sapietis — man,  dowered  with  the 
power  of  reason  and  articulate  speech.' 

The  twenty-two  parent  forms  of  the  human  an- 
cestral line  indicated  by  Haeckel  are,  we  are  assured, 
but  a  few  of  those  which  actually  existed.     They  are 


'  In  marked  contrast  with  the  atheistic,  mechanical  theory 
of  Haeckel  are  the  views  entertained  by  Darwin's  great  rival, 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace.  Writing  in  his  "  Darwinism,"  chap. 
XV.,  of  "  the  introduction  of  sensation  or  consciousness,"  as 
"constituting  the  fundamental  distinction  between  the  animal 
and  vegetable  kingdoms,"  he  expresses  himself  as  follows : 
"  Here,  all  idea  of  mere  complication  of  structure  producing  the 
result  is  out  of  the  question.  We  feel  it  to  be  altogether  prepos- 
terous to  assume,  that  at  a  certain  stage  of  complexity  of  atomic 
constitution,  and  as  a  necessary  result  of  that  complexity  alone, 
an  ego  should  start  into  existence — a  thing  that  feels,  that  is 
conscious  of  its  own  ejfistence,     Here  we  have  the  certainty  that 


248  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

given  only  as  typical  stages,  and  are  far  from  com- 
plete. In  reality,  instead  of  being  only  a  score  in 
number,  there  were  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  transitional  forms,  intermediate  between  the  first 
moneron  and  primitive  man. 

I  have  said  that  the  existence  of  the  first  form  of 
life  indicated  in  this  genealogical  tree  is  purely  imag- 
inary. So,  likewise,  are  many  others.  So  far  as 
paleontology  teaches,  fully  ten  of  the  twenty-two 
groups  mentioned  by  Haeckel  are  unknown  as  fossils, 
while  a  number  of  the  others  do  not,  so  far  as  our 
present  knowledge  extends,  belong  to  the  periods  to 
which  he  assigns  them.  But  this  matters  not.  Se 
non  i  vero  e  ben  trovato.  If  the  facts  required  for  the 
support  of  the  theory  do  not  exist,  they  must  be 
manufactured.  And  if  facts  are  found  which  contra- 
vene the  theory  which  has  been  elaborated  with  such 
care,  tant  pis  pour  les  faits.  The  facts  must  be 
wrong,  because,  forsooth,  the  theory  is  right. 

something  new  has  arisen — a  being  whose  nascent  consciousness 
has  gone  on  increasing  in  power  and  definiteness  till  it  has 
culminated  in  the  higher  animals.  No  verbal  explanation  or 
attempt  at  explanation — such  as  the  statement  that  life  is  the  re- 
sult of  the  molecular  forces  of  the  protoplasm,  or  that  the  whole 
existing  organic  universe  from  amoeba  up  to  man  was  latent  in 
the  fire-mist  from  which  the  solar  system  was  developed — can 
afford  any  mental  satisfaction,  or  help  in  anj'  way  to  a  solution 
of  the  mj'stery." 

Referring  to  the  origin  of  man  he  concludes  :  "  We  thus 
find  that  the  Darwinian  theory,  even  when  carried  out  to  its  ex- 
treme logical  conclusion,  not  only  does  not  oppose,  but  lends  a 
decided  support  to  a  belief  in  the  spiritual  nature  of  man.  It 
shows  us  how  a  man's  body  may  have  been  developed  from  that 
of  a  lower  animal  form  under  the  law  of  natural  selection  ;  but 
it  also  teaches  us,  that  we  possess  intellectual  and  moral  facul- 
ties which  could  not  have  been  so  developed,  but  must  have  had 
another  origin ;  and  for  this  origin  we  only  find  an  adequate 
cause  in  the  unseen  universe  of  spirit." 


MOlfiSM  AND  E  VOL  UTION.  249 

False  Analogy. 

Some  of  the  most  striking  and  characteristic  of 
Haeckel's  methods  of  ratiocination  are  specially  dis- 
played in  the  foregoing  attempt  to  outline  the 
genealogy  of  our  species.  Among  these  may  be 
noted  the  fallacy  of  regarding  analogous  processes  as 
identical.  Thus,  to  his  mind  the  development  of 
the  individual  animal — man,  for  instance — from  a 
simple  germ,  is  but  a  repetition  within  a  short  space 
of  time  of  what  has  actually  occurred  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  species.  Embryological  facts  in  the 
life-history  of  the  individual  animal,  ontogenesis,  are 
considered  as  corresponding  exactly  with  those  which 
must  have  characterized  phylogenesis,  or  the  devel- 
opment of  any  species  in  geological  time.  The 
former  being  open  to  observation  and  study,  while 
the  latter  are  not,  the  facts  which  must  have  ob- 
tained in  phylogeny  are  inferred  from  the  known 
facts  of  ontogeny. 

This  fallacy  of  false  analogy  is  one  into  which 
Haeckel  is  constantly  lapsing,  and  one,  therefore, 
against  which  the  reader  must  always  be  on  the 
alert.  But  it  is  by  no  means  peculiar  to  Haeckel 
alone.  It  is  a  frequent  occurrence  in  most  of  our 
current  scientific  literature,  and  has  probably  been 
more  productive  of  error  than  any  other  one  form  of 
sophism.  Instead  of  being  employed  in  its  strict 
sense,  as  it  should  always  be  used  in  science  and 
philosophy,  analogy  is  taken  most  loosely  or  given 
a  meaning  it  will  not  bear.  In  lieu  of  being  under- 
stood to  imply  a  similarity  of  relations,  which  is  its 


250  B  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA . 

proper  and  specific  meaning,  it  is  used  to  signify 
essential  resemblance,  which  is  wholly  inexact. 

In  order  that  the  argument  of  analogy  should  be 
valid,  the  data  given  should  be  identical,  and  should 
refer  to  two  different  classes  of  beings  viewed  under 
the  same  bearings.  When  this  is  the  case,  the  iden- 
tical data  given  may  be  regarded  as  premises,  from 
which  conclusions  may  be  drawn  applicable  to  both 
classes  of  beings.  Until,  therefore,  Haeckel  and  his 
school  can  demonstrate,  that  the  causes  which  have 
operated  and  the  conditions  which  have  prevailed 
in  phylogeny,  are  identical  with  those  which  exist 
in  respect  of  ontogeny,  his  argument  is  inconclusive, 
if  not  worthless,  and  the  theories  based  on  his  as- 
sumptions are  at  best  but  simple  hypotheses  and 
should  be  so  considered. ' 

The  suppositions  which  he  continually  makes, 
and  the  postulates  which  everywhere  abound  in 
his  writings,  show  the  looseness  of  his  reasoning  and 
the  flimsiness  of  the  structure  which  he  has  reared 
with  such  a  flourish  of  trumpets,  and  to  which  he 
points  with  such  evident  feelings  of  arrogant  exalta- 
tion. On  almost  every  page  of  his  "  Evolution  of 
Man,"  and  his  "  History  of  Creation,"  we  find  such 
phrases  as  "  there  can  be  no  doubt ;"  "  which  may 


^  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  minimize  the  force  or  plausibilit}' 
of  the  argument  in  favor  of  Evolution  which  is  based  on  the 
teachings  of  embryology.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  quite  willing  to 
accept  the  argument  for  what  it  is  worth,  and  in  the  earlier  part 
of  this  work  I  have  endeavored  to  present  it  as  fairly  as  possible 
within  a  brief  compass.  The  facts  of  embryology  may  justify- 
the  conclusions  which  evolutionists  draw  from  them,  but  so  far 
there  is  no  positive  evidence  that  such  is  the  case.  The  argu- 
ment fropi  analogy  may,  in  this  particular  instance,  be  warrant- 


MONISM  AND  EVOLU TION.  251 

safely  be  regarded;"  "as  is  now  very  generally 
acknowledged  ;"  "  we  can  with  more  or  less  certainty 
recognize ;""  it  might  be  argued;"  "a  conception 
which  seems  quite  allowable  ;"  "  we  can,  therefore, 
assume  ;"  "  we  may  assert ;"  "  this  justifies  the  con- 
clusion ;"  and  numberless  others  of  similar  import, 
which,  like  the  paraphernalia  of  the  magician,  are 
designed  to  perplex  and  deceive.  Attention,  how- 
ever, to  the  matter  under  discussion,  will  always  re- 
veal the  imposture  in  Haeckel's  case,  and  disclose  the 
fact  that  his  plausible  statements  are  often  nothing 
more  than  rhetorical  artifices  and  tricks  of  dialectics  ; 
the  reasonings  of  a  special  pleader  who  has  before 
his  mind  but  one  aim,  to  give  vraisemblance  to  an 
assumption  that  cannot  be  substantiated  by  fact. 

Understanding  his  methods  of  reasoning,  and  the 
reckless  manner  in  which  he  draws  conclusions  not 
contained  in  the  premises,  we  need  not  be  surprised 
to  have  Haeckel  tell  us,  as  he  does  in  his  fanciful 
pedigree  of  man,  that  we  must  "  regard  the  am- 
phioxus  with  special  veneration,  as  that  animal  which 
alone,  of  all  extant  animals,  can  enable  us  to  form  an 
approximate  conception  of  our  earliest  Silurian  verte- 
brate ancestors."  Neither  need  we  be  surprised, 
because  we  know  the  man's  flippancy  and  cynicism, 

ed,  but  this  remains  to  be  demonstrated.  What  I  take  excep- 
tion to  in  Hicckel's  argumentation  are,  the  exaggerated  impor- 
tance he  attaches  to  faint  or  imaginary  resemblances,  and  his 
continual  attribution  to  the  argument  from  analogy  of  a  value 
which  it  rarely,  and  which,  as  he  ordinarily  uses  it,  it  never 
possesses  and  never  can  possess.  As  usually  employed  in 
biology,  analogical  reasoning  can  at  best  afford  us  nothing  more 
than  probability  ;  Haeckel  would  have  his  readers  believe,  in  the 
instances  referred  to,  that  it  gives  physical  certainty,  which  it  is 
very  far  from  doing. 


252  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

when  he  declares  that  "  the  amphioxus,  skull-less, 
brainless  and  memberless  as  it  is,  deserves  all  re- 
spect as  being  of  our  own  flesh  and  blood,"  and  that 
this  same  brainless  creature  "  has  better  right  to  be 
an  object  of  profoundest  admiration  and  devoutest 
reverence,  than  any  of  that  worthless  rabble  of  so- 
called  'saints,'  in  whose  honor  our  'civilized  and  en- 
lightened '  cultured  nations  erect  temples  and  decree 

processions." 

Type  of  a  Class. 

But  we  need  not  follow  further  the  Jena  profes- 
sor in  his  extravagant  speculations  and  his  wild  dia- 
tribes against  religion  and  Christian  philosophy.  He 
has  already  been  given  more  attention  than  his  work 
deserves.  He  is,  however,  a  type  of  a  class,  and  of 
quite  a  large  class  of  scientific  men  who  hold  sim- 
ilar views,  and  who  reason  in  a  similar  manner.  The 
saying,  ab  uno  disce  omnes,  is  specially  applicable  here, 
because  to  know  one,  and,  especially,  to  know  the 
leader,  is  to  know  all.  The  methods  of  all  those  be- 
longing to  the  school  of  which  Haeckel  is  such  an 
outspoken  exponent  are  identical.  They  are  all  ex- 
perts in  the  "  art  of  making  things  appear  and  dis- 
appear," and  if  not  as  adroit  as  their  master  in  the  use 
of  sophism,  they  are,  nevertheless,  able  to  deceive 
the  unwary  and  thus  accomplish  untold  mischief. 

Considering  the  nature  of  the  teachings  of  Mon- 
ism, it  is  not  surprising  that  Haeckel  and  his  school 
should  have  such  a  multitude  of  adherents  and  sym- 
pathizers as  they  are  known  to  have. 

"In  the  troublous  times  in  which  we  live,"  ob- 
serves   the  distinguished    savant,  the    Marquis   de 


MONISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  253 

Nadaillac,  "  and  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  of  ideas 
of  which  we  are  the  sorrowful  witnesses,  human  pride 
has  attained  proportions  hitherto  unknown.  Science 
has  become  more  dogmatic  and  more  imperious  than 
was  ever  theology.  It  counts,  by  thousands,  adepts 
who  speak  Avith  emphasis  of  modern  science,  with- 
out very  often  knowing  the  first  word  about  it.  But 
I  am  mistaken — they  have  been  taught  that  modern 
science  is  the  negation  of  creation,  the  negation  of 
the  Creator.  God  belongs  to  the  old  regime;  the 
idea  of  his  justice  weighs  heavily  on  our  enervated 
consciences.  Accordingly,  when  a  hypothesis,  or  a 
discovery,  seems  to  contravene  Christian  beliefs,  it  is 
accepted  without  reflection  and  promulgated  with 
inexplicable  confidence.  It  is  in  this  fact,  rather 
than  in  its  scientific  value,  that  we  must  seek  the 
raison  d'etre  of  transformism."  ' 

But   probably  no   better  explanation  could   be 
given  of  the  confusion  and  perplexity  which  now 
reign  supreme,  especially  among  the  masses,  in  mat- 
•ters  of  science,  philosophy  and  theology,  than  is  ex- 
pressed by  the  old  Epicurean  poet  when  he  affirms : 

"  Omnia  enim  stolidei  magis  admirantur  amantque, 
Inversis  quae  sub  verbis  latitantia  cernunt ; 
Veraque  constituunt,  quae  belle  tangere  possunt 
Aureis,  et  lepido  quae  sunt  fucata  sonore."  * 


* "  Le  Probleme  de  la  Vie,"  p.  64,  et  seq. 

*"  For  fools  rather  admire  and  delight  in  all  things  which 
they  see  hid  under  inversions  and  intricacies  of  words,  and  con- 
sider those  assertions  to  be  truths  which  have  power  to  touch 
the  ear  agreeably,  and  which  are  disguised  with  pleasantness  of 
sound."     Lucretius,  "  De  Rerum  Natura,"  Lib.  I,  642-45. 


CHAPTER  III. 

AGNOSTICISM   AND   EVOLUTION. 
Nature  and  Scope  of  Agnosticism. 

A  MORE  popular  form  of  error  than  Monism,  or 
scientific  Atheism,  and  one  which  is  more 
wide-spread  and  devastating  in  its  effects,  is  the  new- 
fangled system,  if  system  it  can  be  called,  known  as 
Agnosticism.  To  the  superficial  student  it  is  not 
without  color  of  plausibility,  and  by  concealing  the 
objectionable  and  repulsive  features  of  Monism,  it 
now  counts  more  adherents,  probably,  than  any 
other  form  of  scientific  error. 

Like  Monism,  Agnosticism  is  a  system  of  thought 
which  has  allied  itself  with  the  theory  of  Evolution, 
from  which,  as  ordinarily  understood,  it  is  insepara- 
ble. Like  Monism,  it  is  a  mixtum  compositum  of  sci- 
ence, philosophy  and  theology,  in  which  science 
and  Evolution  are  predominant  factors.  And,  like 
Monism,  too,  it  is  a  new  name  for  an  old  form  of 
error.  Unlike  Monism,  however,  Agnosticism  af- 
fects to  suspend  judgment,  where  Monism  makes  a 
positive  assertion,  or  enters  a  point-blank  denial.  In 
many  questions  of  fundamental  importance,  Agnos- 
ticism is  ostensibly  nothing  more  than  simple  doubt, 
or  gentle  skepticism,  while  Monism  is  always  arro- 
gant,  downright   affirmation,   or   negation.     In   its 

(254) 


A  GNos  Tic/sM  Aisfb  k  Vol  trtloN.      25b 

ultimate  analysis,  however,  Agnosticism  as  well  as 
Monism  issues  in  a  practical  denial  of  a  personal 
God,  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  and  relegates 
Providence,  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  the 
moral  responsibility  of  man  to  a  Divine  Being,  to 
the  region  of  fiction. 

Again,  Agnosticism,  like  Monism,,  is  peculiarly 
and  essentially  the  product  of  a  combination  and  a 
succession  of  causes  and  conditions.  As  no  one 
individual  can  be  pointed  to  as  the:  father  of  Mon- 
ism, so  no  one  person  can  be  singled  out  as  the 
founder  of  Agnosticism.  Both  may  have,  and  have 
had,  their  recognized  exponents ;  both,  like  a  Greek 
drama,  have  their  choragi  and  coryphei,  but  these 
exponents,  these  choragi  and  coryphei,  are  not  spon- 
taneous growths.  They  do  not,  Minerva-like,  leap 
suddenly  into  the  intellectual  arena,  fully  developed 
and  armed  cap-a-pie.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
the  product  of  their  environment,  as  affected  by  a 
series  of  antecedent  factors  and  influences.  They 
had  their  predecessors  and  prototypes;  those  who 
planted  the  seeds  which  lay  dormant  until  new  con- 
ditions favored  germination  and  development.  Then 
the  fruit  contained  in  the  germ  was  made  manifest, 
and  the  poison  which  had  been  so  surreptitiously 
instilled,  was  discovered  when  it  was  too  late  to 
administer  an  antidote. 

The  word  "agnostic"  was  invented  by  the  late 
Prof.  Huxley  in  1869.  He  took  it  from  St.  Paul's 
mention,  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  of  the  altar 
erected  by  the  Athenians  "  to  the  unknown  God," 
dpxoffrat  »9ec5,  and,  to  the  inventor's  great  satisfaction, 


256  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  term  took,  and  soon  found  a  recognized  position 
in  the  languages  of  all  civilized  nations.' 

Late   Developments  of  Agnosticism. 

As  a  creed,  or  system  of  philosophy,  Huxley 
derives  Agnosticism  from  the  teachings  of  Kant, 
Hume  and  Sir  William  Hamilton.  At  an  early  age 
his  mind,  he  informs  us,  "  steadily  gravitated  towards 
the  conclusion  "  of  Kant,  who  aflfirms,  in  his  "  Kritik 
der  reinen  Vernunft,"  that  "  the  greatest  and  per- 
haps the  sole  use  of  all  philosophy  of  pure  reason  is, 
after  all,  merely  negative,  since  it  serves  not  as  an 
organon  for  the  enlargement  (of  knowledge),  but  as 

'  Father  Clarke,  S.  J.,  in  a  note  to  an  interesting  series  of 
articles  on  Agnosticism  in  The  Month ,  for  June,  July  and 
August,  1882,  declares  that  the  term  Agnosticism  is  "  an  impos- 
tor from  the  Greek  vocahulary,"  and  further  that  "  the  analogy 
of  other  Greek  formations  is  fatal  to  its  claims  of  recognition." 
"  The  word  Agnosticism,"  he  tells  us,  "  is  founded  on  a  false 
analogy  to  Gnosticism.  Gnosticism  is  the  doctrine  of  those 
who  are  yvu<mKot,  men  professing  yvum^,  or  knowledge.  In  the 
same  way  Agnosticism  would  be  the  doctrine  of  ayvuariKol,  or 
those  who  profess  ayvuaia,  or  ignorance.  But  ayvoxniKos  is  an  im- 
possible Greek  word.  The  Greeks  never  prefix  the  privitive  a, 
or  av,  to  the  adjective  expressing  the  possession  of  a  faculty 
to  indicate  its  absence.  If  we  are  reminded  of  ansesthetic, 
avaiadrjTiKds,  as  formed  on  the  analogy  of  agnostic,  we  answer  (i) 
that  it  is  not  a  classical  Greek  word  at  all ;  (2)  that  it  means  not 
men  who  profess  want  of  perception,  but  that  which  tends  to 
destroy  perception.  By  a  parity  of  reasoning,  agnostic  would 
mean  that  which  tends  to  destroy  or  banish  knowledge.  In  this 
sense  we  admit  the  appropriateness  of  the  name." 

"Greek  philosophers,"  says  Max  Miiller,  "called  it  [Agnos- 
ticism] with  a  technical  name,  Agnoia,  or  if  they  wished  to 
express  the  proper  attitude  of  mind  towards  transcendental  ques- 
tions, they  called  it  Epoche,  i.  e.,  suspense  of  judgment.  Dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages,  exactly  the  same  idea  which  now  goes  by 
the  name  of  Agnosticism,  was  well  known  as  Docta  Ignorantia, 
i.  e.,  the  ignorance  founded  on  the  knowledge  of  our  ignorance 
or  impotence  to  grasp  anything  beyond  what  is  phenomenal." 
See  Nineteenth  Century^  for  Dec,  1894,  pp.  892-95. 


A GNOS TICISM  AND  B  VOL  UTION.         257 

a  discipline  for  its  delimitation ;  and  instead  of 
discovering  truth,  has  only  the  modest  merit  of 
preventing  error." 

The  writings  of  "  that  prince  of  agnostics,"  David 
Hume,  and  Sir  William  Hamilton's  essay  on  The 
Philosophy  of  the  Unconditioned,  confirmed  Hux- 
ley in  this  view,  and  stamped  upon  his  mind  "  the 
strong  conviction  that,  on  even  the  most  solemn 
and  important  questions,  men  are  apt  to  take  cun- 
ning phrases  for  answers;  and  that  the  limitations 
of  our  faculties,  in  a  great  number  of  cases,  render 
real  answers  to  such  questions,  not  merely  actually 
impossible,  but  theoretically  inconceivable." ' 

Huxley,  however,  although  the  coiner  of  the 
word  Agnosticism,  and  one  of  its  most  zealous  and 
popular  exponents,  is  not  its  coryphaeus.  This  posi- 
tion is  held  by  the  philosopher  of  "  the  unknowa- 
ble," Herbert  Spencer,  who  has  done  far  more  than 
any  other  one  person  to  establish  what  might  be 
called  a  school  of  agnostic  philosophy.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  Spencer  is  likewise  the  philosopher 
of  Evolution,  "our  great  philosopher,"  as  Darwin 
calls  him,  we  can  see  what  an  intimate  connection 
there  must  be  between  Evolution,  as  a  scientific 
theory,  and  Agnosticism  as  a  system  of  philosophy. 

But  if  Spencer  is  the  coryphaeus  of  modern 
Agnosticism,  who  was  his  choragus,  who  was  the 
teacher  and  the  fautor-in-chief,  of  the  system  of 
thought  which  he  has  developed  at  such  length  in 
his  numerous  volumes  on  science  and  philosophy  ? 


'Collected  Essays,"  by  T.  H.  Huxley,  vol.  V,  p.  236. 

E.-.7 


258  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Strange  as  it  may  appear,  Spencer's  master  was 
none  other  than  an  Anglican  divine,  whose  ortho- 
doxy an-d  loyalty  to  the  established  church  of  Eng- 
land were  never  suspected,  and  who,  at  the  time  of 
his  death,  held  the  honorable  position  of  dean  of  St. 
Paul's,  London.  The  name  of  this  divine  was  Dean 
Mansel,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  theologians 
and  metaphysicians  of  England  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

The  germs  of  modern  Agnosticism,  according  to 
Spencer's  showing,  are  unequivocally  contained  in 
Mansel's  Bampton  "  Lectures  on  the  Limits  of  Re- 
ligious Thought,"  delivered  in  the  University  of 
Oxford  in  1859.  ^"  ^"^  sentence  he  stated  by  im- 
plication, if  not  directly,  all  that  Spencer  has  devel- 
oped in  his  "  First  Principles,"  and  supplied,  as  it 
were,  the  charter  for  all  the  extreme  forms  of  Agnos- 
ticism which  have  had  such  a  vogue  during  the  past 
generation,  and  whose  progress  has  been  marked 
with  such  dire  results  to  faith,  not  only  in  Great 
Britain,  but  also  throughout  the  entire  Christian 
world. 

"  Of  the  nature  and  attributes  of  God  in  his  infi- 
nite being,  philosophy,"  asserts  Mansel,  "  can  tell  us 
nothing ;  of  man's  inability  to  apprehend  that  na- 
ture, and  why  he  is  thus  unable,  she  tells  us  all  that 
we  can  know,  and  all  that  we  need  to  know."  ' 

God  being  thus  separated  from  His  creatures  by 
an  impassable  gulf,  it  is  useless  for  us  to  attempt  to 
investigate  His  nature  and  attributes.  No  knowledge 
that  we  can  acquire  of  God  will  satisfy  the  demands 

1  Lecture  VIII,  p.  126. 


A  GNOS  TICISM  A  ND  E  VOL  UTION.         259 

of  philosophy,  or  be  capable  "  of  reduction  to  an 
ultimate  and  absolute  truth."  The  only  response 
that  may  be  given  to  our  inquiries,  "  the  only  voice 
which  sounds  back  from  the  abyss  where  dwells  the 
Being  whom  we  designate  as  the  Absolute  and  the 
Infinite,  is  a  solemn  warning  that  we  possess  no 
faculties  which  qualify  us  for  the  attainment  of  any 
knowledge  of  God." 

This,  in  brief,  is  Manselism,  the  elimination  of 
God  from  the  domain  of  human  knowledge,  and  a 
substitution,  in  its  place,  of  a  dreary,  hopeless,  de- 
risive skepticism ;  the  abolition  of  theology  as  an 
aimless,  bootless  pursuit,  and  the  virtual  recognition 
of  a  dark,  blighting,  forbidding  Atheism. 

Mansel,  Huxley  and  Romanes. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  Mansel 
never  apprehended  the  full  significance  of  the  de- 
structive principles  enunciated  in  his  Bampton 
lectures.  Not  so,  however,  with  the  enemies  of 
Christianity.  They  saw,  at  a  glance,  the  real  bear- 
ing of  the  Oxford  professor's  teachings,  and  were 
not  slow  to  give  them  all  the  publicity  possible. 

Spencer  quotes  from  him,  at  length,  in  his  "  First 
Principles,"  and  makes  his  declaration  the  basis  of  the 
agnostic  philosophy.  Huxley,  Romanes  and  others 
followed  in  the  wake  of  Spencer,  and  were  not  long 
in  bringing  the  principles  of  Mansel,  as  expounded 
by  Spencer,  within  the  comprehension  of  the  general 
reading  public. 

Huxley,  indeed,  has  done  more,  probably,  than 
anyone  else  to  popularize  Agnosticism,  and  by  the 


260  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

majority  of  readers  he  is  regarded  as  its  chief  ex- 
ponent and  defender.  He,  however,  disclaims  any- 
thing like  a  creed,  and  declares  that  agnostics  are 
precluded  from  having  one  by  the  very  nature  of 
their  mental  status.  He  prefers  to  regard  Agnos- 
ticism, not  as  a  creed,  but  as  "a  method,  the  essence 
of  which  lies  in  the  rigorous  application  of  a  single 
principle."  "  Positively,"  he  informs  us,  "  the  prin- 
ciple may  be  expressed :  In  matters  of  the  intellect, 
follow  your  reason  as  far  as  it  will  take  you,  with- 
out regard  to  any  other  consideration.  And  nega- 
tively :  In  matters  of  the  intellect  do  not  pretend 
that  conclusions  are  certain  which  are  not  demon- 
strated or  demonstrable.  That  I  take  to  be  the 
agnostic  faith,  which,  if  a  man  keep  whole  and  un- 
defiled,  he  shall  not  be  ashamed  to  look  the  universe 
in  the  face,  whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store 
for  him."' 

The  profession  of  faith  of  G.  J.  Romanes  is  more 
explicit,  at  least  in  so  far  as  it  refers  to  God,  and 
gives  us  in  a  few  words  the  views  entertained  by  the 
two  leading  classes  of  agnostics  regarding  the  First 
Cause,  or  the  Absolute  or  Unconditioned. 

"By  Agnosticism,"  asserts  Romanes,  "I  under- 
stand a  theory  of  things  which  abstains  from  either 
affirming  or  denying  the  existence  of  God.  It  thus 
represents  with  regard  to  Theism  a  state  of  sus- 
pended judgment;  and  all  it  undertakes  to  affirm  is, 
that  upon  existing  evidence  the  being  of  God  is  un- 
known. But  the  term  Agnosticism  is  frequently 
used  in  a  widely  different  sense,  as  implying  belief 

' "  Science  and  Christian  Tradition,"  p.  246. 


A  GNOS  TIC  ISM  A  ND  B  VOL  U  TION.         261 

that  the  being  of  God  is  not  merely  now  unknown, 
but  must  always  remain  unknown." 

Docta  Ignorantia. 

The  agnostic  creed,  then,  is  a  creed  based  on  ig- 
norance rather  than  on  knowledge.  We  can  know 
nothing  that  does  not  come  within  the  range  of 
sense;  nothing  which  we  cannot  observe  with  our 
microscopes,  spectroscopes  and  telescopes,  or  exam- 
ine with  our  scalpels,  or  test  in  our  alembics  and 
crucibles.  Our  knowledge  is  and  must  be,  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  limited  to  things  material 
and  phenomenal.  Every  attempt  to  fathom  the 
mysteries  of  the  super-sensible  or  spiritual  world,  if 


'  Contemporary  Review,  vol.  L,  p.  59.  In  his  posthumous 
"  Thoughts  on  Religion,"  Romanes  distinguishes  two  kinds 
of  Agnosticism,  pure  and  impure,  the  former  held  by  Huxley, 
the  latter  by  Spencer.  "The  modern  and  convenient  term 
'Agnosticism,'  "  writes  Romanes,  "is  used  in  two  very  different 
senses.  Bj  its  originator.  Professor  Huxley,  it  was  coined  to 
signify  an  attitude  of  reasoned  ignorance  touching  everything 
that  lies  beyond  the  sphere  of  sense-perception,  a  professed  in- 
ability to  found  valid  belief  on  any  other  basis.  It  is  in  this,  its 
original  sense,  and  also,  in  my  opinion,  its  only  philosophically 
justifiable  sense,  that  I  shall  understand  the  term.  But  the 
other,  and  perhaps  more  particular  sense,  in  which  the  word  is 
now  employed,  is  as  a  correlative  of  Mr.  H.  Spencer's  doctrine 
of  the  unknowable. 

"This  latter  term  is  philosophically  erroneous,  implying 
important  negative  knowledge,  that  if  there  be  a  God,  we  know 
this  much  about  him,  that  He  cannot  reveal  Himself  to  man. 
Pure  Agnosticism  is  as  defined  by  Huxley."     Pp.  107-108. 

It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  the  lamented  author  of  these 
"Thoughts  on  Religion,"  did  not  live  to  complete  his  work. 
Not  long  before  his  premature  death,  it  is  pleasing  to  record,  he 
recognized  the  weakness  and  fallacies  of  Agnosticism,  and  re- 
turned to  "  a  full  and  deliberate  communion  "  with  the  Church 
of  England,  from  which  he  had  so  long  been  separated.  "  In 
his  case,"  writes  Canon  Gore,  "  the  '  pure  in  heart '  was,  after  a 
long  period  of  darkness,  allowed  in  a  measure,  before  his  death, 
to  '  see  God.'  " 


262  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

there  be  such  a  world,  or  to  trace  a  connection  be- 
tween noumenal  cause  or  phenomenal  effect,  if  there 
be  such  a  connection,  must,  we  are  told,  prove  use- 
less and  abortive.  There  may  or  there  may  not  be, 
a  God;  we  hope  there  is  a  God,  but  we  have  no 
warrant  for  asserting  His  existence.  We  cannot  af- 
firm either  that  He  is  personal  or  impersonal,  intel- 
ligent or  unintelligent ;  we  cannot  say  whether  He  is 
mind  or  matter.  We  cannot,  by  searching,  find 
Him  out,  and  our  every  assertion  regarding  Him  is 
but  a  contradiction  in  terms.  If  there  be  a  Supreme 
Being,  a  First  Cause,  an  Absolute  Existence,  an 
Ultimate  Power;  if,  in  a  word,  there  be  a  God,  He 
not  only  is  now,  but  ever  must  be,  unknown  and 
unknowable. 

"There  may  be  absolute  Truth,  but  if  there  is,  it 
is  out  of  our  reach.  It  is  possible  that  there  may  be 
a  science  of  realities,  of  abstract  being,  of  first  prin- 
ciples and  a  priori  truths,  but  it  is  up  in  the  heav- 
ens, far  above  our  heads,  and- we  must  be  content  to 
grovel  amid  things  of  earth  —  to  build  up  as  best  we 
can  our  fragments  of  empirical  knowledge,  leaving 
all  else  to  that  future  world,  in  which,  in  a  clear  light, 
if  there  is  ever  to  be  a  clearer  light  for  us,  we  shall 
know,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  knowledge,  the  na- 
ture and  attributes  of  God,  if  there  is  a  God,  and  if 
His  nature  can  be  known,  and  if  His  attributes  are 
anything  more  than  a  fiction  of  theologians."  * 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  in  his  interesting  work,  "  The 
Unity  of  Nature"  well  observes  that  "This  funda* 
mental   inconsistency   in   the   agnostic   philosophy, 

'  The  Month,  vol.  XLV,  p.  156. 


A GNOS TICISM  A ND  EVOLU TION.         263 

becomes  all  the  more  remarkable  when  we  find,  that 
the  very  men  who  tell  us  that  we  are  not  one  with 
anything  above  us,  are  the  same  who  insist  that  we 
are  one  with  everything  beneath  us.  Whatever 
there  is  in  us  or  about  us  which  is  purely  animal,  we 
may  see  everywhere ;  but  whatever  there  is  in  us 
purely  intellectual,  or  moral,  we  delude  ourselves  if 
we  think  we  see  it  anywhere.  There  are  abundant 
homologies  bet\yeen  our  bodies  and  the  bodies  of 
beasts ;  but  there  are  no  homologies  between  our 
minds  and  any  Mind  which  lives  and  manifests  itself 
in  nature.  Our  Hvers  and  our  lungs,  our  vertebrae 
and  our  nervous  systems,  are  identical  in  origin  and 
in  function  with  those  of  the  living  creatures  around 
us;  but  there  is  nothing  in  nature,  or  above  it,  which 
corresponds  to  our  forethought  or  design  or  purpose, 
to  our  love  of  the  good,  or  our  admiration  of  the 
beautiful,  to  our  indignation  with  the  wicked,  or  to 
our  pity  for  the  suffering  or  the  fallen.  I  venture  to 
think  that  no  system  of  philosophy  that  has  ever 
been  taught  on  earth,  lies  under  such  a  weight  of  an- 
tecedent improbability  ;  and  this  improbabiHty  in- 
creases in  direct  proportion  to  the  success  of  science 
in  tracing  the  unity  of  nature,  and  in  showing  step 
by  step,  how  its  laws  and  their  results  can  be 
brought  into  more  direct  relation  with  the  mind  and 
intellect  of  man."  * 

Agnosticism  as  a  Via  Media. 

Agnosticism  professes  to  be  a  kind  of  via  media 
between  Theism  and  Atheism.     It  does  not  deny 

>  P.  i66. 


264  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA, 

the  existence  of  God,  but  declares  that  a  knowl- 
edge  of  Him  is  unattainable.  Whether  He  has 
personality  or  not ;  whether  He  has  intelligence 
or  not ;  whether  He  is  just,  holy,  omnipotent,  om- 
niscient or  not ;  whether  He  has  a  care  for  man 
and  watches  over  him  or  not ;  whether  He  has 
created  man  and  the  earth  he  inhabits  or  not — 
all  these  are  questions  which  are  simply  insoluble ; 
are  matters  which  are,  and  must  forever  be,  be- 
yond the  ken  and  apprehension  of  the  human  in- 
tellect. 

A  very  slight  examination  will  suffice  to  convince 
•anyone  that  such  a  via  media  cannot  exist ;  that, 
notwithstanding  what  its  advocates  may  assert  to 
the  contrary,  Agnosticism  is  but  Atheism  in  dis- 
guise. More  than  this ;  it  is  worse  than  Atheism. 
An  atheist,  although  he  may  deny  the  existence  of 
God,  is  nevertheless  open  to  discuss  the  subject. 
An  agnostic,  however,  takes  away  all  matter  for  dis- 
cussion by  insisting  that  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  is 
unknowable,  and  being  so,  is  beyond  and  above  the 
reach  of  reason  and  consciousness.  Far  from  being 
the  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth  and  all  things,  as 
faith  teaches,  God,  according  to  the  agnostic,  is  but 
a  creature  of  the  imagination,  a  figment  of  theolo- 
gians, and  religion,  even  in  its  pure  and  noblest 
form,  is  but  a  development  of  fetichism  or  ghost- 
worship. 

Our  present  concern,  however,  is  not  so  much 
with  Agnosticism  as  a  system  of  belief  or  unbelief, 
as  with  Agnosticism  in  relation  to  the  theory  of  the 
origin  and  Evolution  of  the  visible  universe. 


A  GNOSTICISM  A  ND  B  VOL  UTION.         265 

Origin  of  the  Universe. 

The  great  and  perpetual  crux  for  agnostics,  as 
well  as  for  atheists,  is  the  existence  of  the  world. 
For  the  theist,  the  origin  of  the  material  universe 
offers  no  difficulty.  He  accepts  as  true  the  declara- 
tion of  Genesis,  that:  "In  the  beginning  God  created 
heaven  and  earth,"  and  with  the  acceptance  of  this 
truth,  all  difficulty,  based  on  the  fact  of  creation, 
vanishes  forthwith.  But  to  the  agnostic,  as  well  as 
to  the  atheist,  the  query:  Whence  the  world  and  the 
myriad  forms  of  life  which  it  contains? — is  constantly 
recurring,  and  with  ever-increasing  persistency  and 
importance.  It  is,  as  all  must  acknowledge,  a  fun- 
damental question,  and  no  system  of  thought  is 
worthy  of  the  name  of  philosophy,  that  is  not  able 
to  give  an  answer  which  the  intellect  will  recog- 
nize as  rational  and  conclusive. 

According  to  Herbert  Spencer,  there  are  but 
"three  verbally  intelligent  suppositions"  resfJecting 
the  origin  of  the  universe.  "We  may,"  he  says, 
"assert  that  it  is  self-existent ;  or  that  it  is  self-cre- 
ated ;  or  that  it  is  created  by  an  external  agency. 
That  it  should  be  self-existent  is  inconceivable,  be- 
cause this"  implies  the  conception,  which  is  an  im- 
possibility, of  infinite  past  time.  To  this  let  us  add, 
that  even  were  self-existence  conceivable,  it  would 
not  in  any  sense  be  an  explanation  of  the  universe, 
nor  make  it  in  any  degree  more  comprehensible. 
Thus  the  atheistic  theory  is  not  only  absolutely  un- 
thinkable, but  even  if  it  were  thinkable  would  not 
be  a  solution. 


266  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

"The  hypothesis  of  self-creation,"  the  English 
philosopher  continues,  "which  practically  amounts 
to  what  is  called  Pantheism,  is  similarly  incapable  of 
being  represented  in  thought.  Really  to  conceive 
self-creation,  is  to  conceive  potential  existence  pass- 
ing into  actual  existence  by  some  inherent  necessity; 
which  we  cannot  do.  And  even  were  it  true  that 
potential  existence  is  conceivable,  we  should  still  be 
no  forwarder.  For  whence  the  potential  existence  ? 
This  would  just  as  much  require  accounting  for  exist- 
ence,  and  just  the  same  difficulties  would  meet  us." 
According  to  Spencer,  therefore,  both  the  pantheis- 
tic and  the  atheistic  hypotheses  must  be  dismissed,  as 
utterly  inadequate  to  explain  the  fact  of  the  world's 
actual  existence. 

The  third  hypothesis,  and  the  one  generally  re- 
ceived, is  known  as  the  theistic  hypothesis;  creation 
by  an  external  agency.  But  "the  idea,"  I  am  still 
quoting  Spencer,  "  of  a  Great  Artificer  shaping  the 
universe,  somewhat  after  the  manner  in  which  a 
workman  shapes  a  piece  of  furniture,  does  not  help 
us  to  comprehend  the  real  mystery ;  viz.,  the  origin 
of  the  materials  of  which  the  universe  consists. 
.  .  .  But  even  supposing  that  the  genesis  of  the 
universe  could  really  be  represented  in  thought  as 
the  result  of  an  external  agency,  the  mystery 
would  be  as  great  as  ever,  for  there  would  still 
arise  the  question :  How  came  there  to  be  an  ex- 
ternal agent,  for  we  have  seen  that  self-existence 
is  rigorously  inconceivable?  Thus,  impossible  as 
it  is  to  think  of  the  actual  universe  as  self-exist- 
ing, we  do  but  multiply  impossibiHties  of  thought 


A  GNOS  TIC  ISM  A  ND  E  VOL  U  TION.         267 

by  every  attempt  we   make   to   explain    its   exist- 
ence.'" 

According  to  Spencer,  then,  the  theistic  hypothe- 
sis of  creation  is  as  unthinkable  as  the  hypotheses  of 
Atheism  and  Pantheism.  The  theistic,  as  well  as  the 
atheistic  and  the  pantheistic  views,  he  will  have  it, 
imply  a  contradiction  in  terms,  and,  such  being  the 
case,  we  must,  perforce,  resign  ourselves  to  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  agnostic  position,  which  is  one  of 
ignorance  and  darkness. 

Spencer's  Unknowable. 

But,  strive  as  he  may,  Spencer  cannot  think  of 
the  world  around  him  without  thinking  of  it  as 
caused  —  and  hence  he  is  forced  to  think  of  a  First 
Cause,  infinite,  absolute  and  unconditioned.  And 
in  spite  of  his  assertion  that  God  is  and  must  be  un- 
knowable, he  is  continually  contradicting  himself  by 
assigning  characteristics  and  attributes  to  that  of 
which  he  avers  we  can  know  absolutely  nothing. 
For  He  of  whom  nothing  can  be  known,  of  whom 
nothing  can  be  declared,  is,  Spencer  affirms,  the  First 
Cause  of  all,  the  Ultimate  Reality,  the  Inscrutable 
Power,  that  which  underlies  all  phenomena,  that 
which  accounts  for  all  phenomena,  that  which  tran- 
scends all  phenomena,  the  Supreme  Being,  the  In- 
finite, the  Absolute,  the  All-Being,  the  Creative 
Power,  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  by  which 
all  things  are  created  and  sustained  ;  a  mode  of 
being  as  much  transcending  intelligence  and  will 
as  these  transcend  mechanical  motion. 


*'' First  Principles,"  chap.  ii. 


268  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Max  Mtiller  on  Agnosticism. 

The  distinguished  philologist  and  orientalist, 
Max  Miiller,  although  not  a  philosopher  by  profes- 
sion, reasons  far  more  philosophically  than  Herbert 
Spencer,  when  he  writes:  "I  cannot  help  discover- 
ing, in  the  universe  an  all-pervading  causality  or 
reason  for  everything;  for  even  when,  in  my  phe- 
nomenal ignorance,  I  do  not  yet  know  a  reason  for 
this  or  that,  I  am  forced  to  admit  that  there  exists 
some  such  reason ;  I  feel  bound  to  admit  it,  because, 
to  a  mind  like  ours,  nothing  can  exist  without  a 
sufficient  reason.  But  how  do  I  know  that?  Here 
is  the  point  where  I  cease  to  be  an  agnostic.  I  do 
not  know  it  from  experience,  and  yet  I  know  it 
with  a  certainty  greater  than  any  which  experience 
can  give.  This,  also,  is  not  a  new  discovery.  The 
first  step  towards  it  was  made  at  a  very  early  time 
by  the  Greek  philosophers,  when  they  turned  from 
the  observation  of  outward  nature  to  higher  spheres 
of  thought,  and  recognized  in  nature  the  working 
of  a  mind,  or  Nnu'i^  which  pervades  the  universe. 
Anaxagoras,  who  was  the  first  to  postulate  such  a 
Nobq  in  nature,  ascribed  to  it  not  much  more  than 
the  first  impulse  to  the  inter-action  of  his  homoiom- 
eries.  But  even  his  A'^y?  was  soon  perceived  to  be 
more  than  a  mere  Primum  Mobile  \  more  than  the 
xivam  ay.ivazuv.  We,  ourselves,  after  thousands  of 
years  of  physical  and  metaphysical  research,  can  say 
no  more  than  that  there  is  voD?,  that  there  is  mind 
and  reason  in  nature.  Sa  Majesty  le  Hasard  has 
long  been   dethroned  in  all  scientific  studies,  and 


A  GNOS TICISM  AND  B  VOL  UTION.         269 

neither  natural  selection,  nor  struggle  for  life,  nor 
the  influence  of  environment,  nor  other  aliases  of 
it,  will  account  for  the  logos  within  us.  If  any 
philosopher  can  persuade  himself,  that  the  true  and 
well-ordered  genera  of  nature  are  the  results  of  me- 
chanical causes,  whatever  name  we  may  give  them, 
he  moves  in  a  world  altogether  different  from  my 
own.  To  Plato,  these  genera  were  ideas;  to  the 
peripatetics,  they  were  words,  or  logoi;  to  both, 
they  were  manifestations  of  thought." ' 

Sources  of  Agnosticism. 

One  of  the  chief  sources  of  the  Agnosticism 
now  so  rampant,  is  to  be  sought  in  the  lamentable 
ignorance  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  true 
philosophy  and  theology  everywhere  manifest,  and 
especially  in  the  productions  of  our  modern  scien- 
tists and  philosophers.  And  the  only  antidote  for 
agnostic,  as  well  as  atheistic  teaching,  is  that  scho- 
lastic philosophy  which  contemporary  thinkers  ig- 
nore, if  they  do  not  positively  contemn  ;  for  it  alone 
can  clear  up  the  fallacies  which  are  constantly  ad- 
mitted in  the  name  of  philosophy,  and  which  have 
done  so  much  to  confuse  thought  and  to  make 
sound  ratiocination  impossible. 

Another  not  unfrequent  cause  of  error  arises  from 
a  false  psychology,  from  confounding  or  identifying 
a  faculty  —  imagination  —  which  is  material,  with  a 
faculty — reason — which  is  immaterial.  Mind  is  made 
a  function  of  matter,  and  that  which  cannot  be  pic- 
tured to  the  imagination  is  regarded  as  impossible  of 

*  The  Nineteenth  Century^  December,  1894. 


270  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

apprehension  by  the  intellect.  That,  therefore,  which 
the  imagination  cannot  admit,  cannot  be  accepted  by 
reason  ;  that  which  is  unimaginable  is,  ipso  facto,  un- 
thinkable. Such  is  the  suicidal  skepticism  of  those 
who  confuse  the  immaterial  thought,  which  is  above 
and  beyond  sense,  with  the  material  imagination, 
which  is  always  intimately  connected  with  sense,  and 
which,  by  its  very  nature,  is  incompetent  to  rise  above 
the  conditions  and  limitations  of  matter. 

Again,  probably  no  two  terms  are  more  prolific 
of  fallacy  and  confusion  than  the  much-abused  words 
time  and  space. 

Infinite    Time. 

One  of  the  gravest  objections  against  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  from  Spencer's  point  of  view,  is  that 
we  cannot  conceive  of  a  self-existent  being,  because 
self-existence  implies  infinite  past  time,  which  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms.  We  cannot  conceive  of 
God  existing  from  all  eternity,  because  eternity  is 
but  time  multiplied  to  infinity,  and  we  cannot  con- 
ceive time  multiplied  to  infinity. 

The  diflficulty  here  indicated  arises  from  a  mis- 
apprehension of  the  nature  of  time,  and  from  an  an- 
thropomorphic view  of  God,  which  subjects  Him  to 
the  conditions  and  limitations  of  His  creatures.  God 
has  not  existed  through  infinite  time,  as  is  supposed. 
He  does  not  exist  in  time  at  all.  He  exists  apart 
from  time ;  and  before  time  was,  God  was.  Time 
implies  change  and  succession ;  but  in  God  there  is 
neither  change  nor  succession.  As  the  measure  of  the 
existence  of  created  things,  it  is  something  relative; 


A  GNOS TICISM  AND  B  VOL  UTION.         271 

but  in  God  all  is  absolute.  Eternity  is  not,  as  the 
agnostic  has  it,  time  raised  to  an  infinite  power,  no 
more  than  the  attributes  of  God  are  human  attributes 
raised  to  an  infinite  power.  God  has  existed  from  all 
eternity,  but  He  is,  by  His  very  nature,  above  time,  and 
before  time,  and  beyond  time,  even  infinite  time. 
To  make  God  exist  through  infinite  past  time,  be- 
cause He  has  existed  from  all  eternity,  would  be  tanta- 
mount to  imposing  on  Him  the  conditions  of  cre- 
ated things,  and  to  degrading  Him  as  much  as  do 
the  most  extravagant  of  anthropomorphists. 

Infinite  Space. 

And  as  God  does  not  exist  in  time,  so  He  does 
not  exist  in  space.  Infinite  space,  like  infinite  time, 
is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  If  there  were  nothing 
to  be  measured,  if  material  objects  could  be  anni- 
hilated, space  would  disappear.  For  space  is  not 
an  independent  entity,  as  agnostics  suppose,  not  a 
kind  of  a  huge  box,  which  was  created  for  the  re- 
ception of  material  things,  but  the  necessary  and 
concomitant  result  of  the  creation  of  matter,  of 
what  is  limited  and  capable  of  measurement.  And 
as  God  is  above  and  before  and  beyond  time,  so  is 
He  likewise  above  and  before  and  beyond  space. 
As  time  began  only  when  God  uttered  His  creative 
fiat,  so  space  had  no  existence  until  the  creation  of 
the  material  universe.  Neither  space  nor  time, 
therefore,  can  be  used  as  a  foundation  on  which  to 
base  an  argument  against  creation,  or  the  existence 
of  a  First  Cause,  for  both  space  and  time  imply 
limitation,  and  God,  the  Absolute,  is  above  and  in- 


272  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

dependent  of  all  limitation.  Agnostics,  who  protest 
so  strongly  against  Anthropomorphism,  are,  there- 
fore, themselves  anthropomorphists,  when  they  at- 
tempt, as  they  do  by  their  irrational  theory,  to  tie 
down  the  Creator  to  the  conditions  of  His  creatures. 

Mysteries  of  Nature.  . 

I  have  said  that  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  Agnos- 
ticism is  ignorance  of  Christian  philosophy  and  the- 
ology. This  is  true.  But  there  is  also  another 
reason.  The  mysteries  of  nature  which  everywhere 
confront  us,  and  which  baffle  all  attempts  at  their 
solution ;  the  impossibility  of  lifting  the  veil  which 
separates  the  visible  from  the  invisible  world,  are 
other  sources  of  skepticism,  and  contribute  not  a 
little  to  make  Agnosticism  plausible,  and  to  give  it 
the  vogue  which  it  now  enjoys.  "Hardly,"  says  the 
Wise  Man,  "  do  we  guess  aright  at  things  that  are 
upon  earth  ;  and  with  labor  do  we  find  the  things  that 
are  before  us.  But  the  things  that  are  in  Heaven, 
who  shall  search  out  ?  "  The  mysteries  of  the  natural 
order,  those  which  confront  us  on  the  threshold  of 
the  unseen,  are  great  and  often  insoluble;  but  how 
much  greater,  how  much  more  unfathomable,  are 
those  that  envelop  the  world  beyond  the  realm  of 
sense,  the  world  of  spirit  and  soul,  the  world  of  an- 
gelic and  Divine  intelHgence ! 

The  difficulties  indicated  are  grave  indeed,  but 
skeptics  are  not  the  only  ones  who  have  given  them 
thought  or  fully  appreciated  their  magnitude.  There 
is  a  Christian  as  well  as  a  skeptical  Agnosticism,  and 
all  the  difficulties  suggested  by  the  mysteries  of  the 


AGNOSTICISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  273 

natural  and  supernatural  orders,  were  long  ago  real- 
ized and  taken  into  account  by  Christian  philosophy 
and  Christian  theology.  They  were  before  the 
minds  of  Origen  and  Clement  of  Alexandria ;  they 
occupied  the  brilliant  intellects  of  St.  Basil,  St.  John 
Chrysostom,  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  St.  Augus- 
tine ;  they  entered  into  the  disputations  of  the 
Schoolmen,  and  have  found  a  prominent  place  in 
the  writings  of  their  successors  up  to  the  present 
day.  No,  these  difBculties  have  not  been  ignored  ; 
neither  have  they  been  underrated  nor  dismissed 
without  receiving  the  consideration  their  importance 
demands.  Far  from  being  new,  as  certain  writers 
would  have  us  believe;  far  from  being  the  product 
of  the  research  of  these  latter  days ;  far  from  being 
the  result  of  those  deep  and  critical  investigations 
which  have  been  conducted  in  every  department  of 
knowledge,  sacred  and  profane,  they  are  as  old  as 
the  Church,  as  old  even  as  speculative  thought. 

Christian   Agnosticism. 

Unlike  the  Agnosticism  of  skepticism,  however, 
Christian  Agnosticism  is  on  firm  ground,  and, 
guided  by  the  principles  of  a  sound  philosophy,  is 
able  with  unerring  judgment  to  discriminate  the 
true  from  the  false,  and  to  draw  the  line  of  demar- 
cation between  the  knowable  and  the  unknowable. 
Christian  Agnosticism  confesses  aloud  that  God  is 
incomprehensible,  that  we  can  have  no  adequate 
idea  of  His  perfections,  but,  unlike  skeptical  Agnos- 
ticism, it  brushes  aside  the  false  and  delusive  hope, 
that  in  the  distant   future,  when    our  faculties   arc 

E.-I8 


274  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA. 

more  nighly  developed,  when  the  work  of  Evolu- 
tion is  farther  advanced  than  it  now  is,  we  may  per- 
haps be  able  to  comprehend  the  Divine  nature,  and 
have  an  adequate  notion  of  the  Divine  perfections. 
Christian  Agnosticism  tells  us  that  not  even  the 
blessed  in  Heaven,  who  see  the  whole  of  the  Divine 
nature,  can  ever  have,  even  after  millions  and 
billions  of  ages,  a  knowledge  which  shall  be  com- 
mensurate in  depth  with  the  Divine  Object  of  their 
adoration  and  love.  They  shall  see  God  in  the  clear 
light  of  the  Beatific  Vision,  facie  ad  faciem,  and 
shall  know  as  they  are  known.  Nothing  shall  be 
hidden  from  them.  Their  intelligence  will  be  illu- 
mined by  the  light  of  God's  glory.  The  veil  that 
now  intervenes  between  the  Creator  and  the  crea- 
ture will  be  removed,  and  the  created  intellect  will  be 
in  the  veritable  presence  of  the  Divine  Essence.  But 
even  then,  it  will  be  impossible  to  have  an  adequate 
or  a  comprehensive  knowledge  of  God.  He  will,  as 
the  Scholastics  phrase  it,  be  known  totus  sed  non 
totaliter.  The  soul  will  always  have  new  beauties 
undiscovered,  fresh  glories  to  arrest  its  enraptured 
gaze,  and  unfathomable  abysses  of  love  and  wisdom 
to  contemplate,  whose  immensity  will  be  as  great 
after  millions  of  aeons  shall  have  elapsed,  as  when 
it  was  ushered  into  the  Divine  Presence,  when  it 
caught  the  first  glimpse  of  the  glory  of  the  Beatific 
Vision,  and  experienced  the  first  thrills  of  ecstasy  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  fathomless,  limitless  ocean 
of  God's  infinite  perfections.  The  soul  will  know 
God,  but  its  knowledge  will  always  be  limited  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  created,  that  it  is  finite,  that  it  is 


A  GNOS  TIC  ISM  A  ND  EVOL  UTJON.         275 

human,  that  its  capacity  is  narrowed  and  restricted 
by  its  very  nature,  and  is,  therefore,  incompetent  to 
fathom  the  depths,  or  comprehend  the  immensity, 
of  the  ocean  of  Divine  Wisdom  and  Divine  Love,  to 
comprehend,  in  a  word,  that  which  is  immeasurable, 
and  infinite,  and  eternal. 

If,  then,  the  blessed  may  drink  for  all  eternity  at 
the  fountain  of  the  Godhead,  without  exhausting  or 
diminishing  the  infinitude  of  joy  and  love  and  knowl- 
edge which  is  there  found,  we  should  not  be  sur- 
prised to  encounter  difficulties  and  mysteries,  in  the 
natural  as  well  as  in  the  supernatural  order,  which 
are  above  and  beyond  our  weak  and  circumscribed 
intellects.  We  admit,  and  admit  frankly,  that  there 
is  much  that  we  do  not  know,  much  that  we  can 
never  comprehend.  But  our  ignorance  of  many 
things  does  not  make  us  skeptics  in  all  things  be- 
yond the  range  of  sense  and  experiment.  We  may 
not  know  God  adequately,  but  we  do  know  much 
about  Him,  aside  from  what  He  has  been  pleased  to 
reveal  regarding  Himself.  With  St.  Paul,  we  believe 
that  "  the  invisible  things  of  God  from  the  creation 
of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by 
the  things  that  are  made:  His  eternal  power  also 
and  divinity." ' 

^  Romans,  chap,  i,  20.  I  take  pleasure  in  again  quoting 
from  Max  Miiller,  who,  in  speaking  of  the  matter  under  dis- 
cussion truthfully  observes  :  "In  one  sense  I  hope  I  am,  and  have 
always  been,  an  agnostic,  that  is,  in  relying  on  nothing  but  his- 
torical facts,  and  in  following  reason  as  far  as  it  will  take  us  in 
matters  of  the  intellect,  and  in  never  pretending  that  conclusions 
are  certain  which  are  not  demonstrated  or  demonstrable.  This 
attitude  of  the  mind  is  the  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  all  philoso- 
phy. If  in  future  it  is  to  be  called  Agnosticism,  then  I  am  a 
true  agnostic ;  but  if  Agnosticism  excludes  a  recognition  of  an 


876  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Of  the  essence  of  God  we  can  know  nothing. 
Even  of  matter  we  are  ignorant  as  to  its  essence. 
From  the  existence  of  the  world,  we  infer  the  exist- 
ence of  God  ;  for  our  primary  intuitions  teach  us 
that  there  can  be  no  effect  without  a  cause.  The 
evidences  of  order  and  design  in  the  universe,  prove 
the  existence  of  a  Creator  who  is  inteUigent,  who 
has  power  and  will,  and  who,  therefore,  is  personal, 
and  not  the  blind  fate  and  impersonal  energy  and 
unknowable  entity  of  the  agnostic. 

Gods  of  the   Positivist   and  the   Agnostic. 

The  gods  of  the  heathen  were  manifold  and 
grotesque,  but  what  shall  we  say  of  the  objects 
which  the  positivist  and  agnostic  propose  for  our 
worship  and  love  ? 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  gave  Divine  honors  to 
demi-gods  and  heroes.  Comte,  one  of  the  apostles 
of  modern  Agnosticism,  affects  to  recoil  before  such 
gross  idolatry  ;  but  is  he  more  of  a  philosopher,  or 
less  of  an  idolator,  when  he  proclaims  that  it  is  not 
man  taken  individually,  or  any  particular  man,  but 
man  taken  collectively,  man  considered  in  the  ag- 
gregate, that  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  object  of  our 
cult  ?  The  Roman  and  the  Athenian  worshipped 
Apollo    and   Hercules,  Jupiter  and  Venus;  Comte 

eternal  reason,  pervading  the  natural  and  the  moral  world,  if 
to  postulate  a  rational  cause  for  a  rational  universe  is  called 
Gnosticism,  then  I  am  a  gnostic,  and  a  humble  follower  of  the 
greatest  thinkers  of  our  race,  from  Plato  and  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  to  Kant  and  Hegel."  The  Nineteenth  Century, 
Dec,  1894;  see  also,  "The  Christian  Agnostic  and  the  Chris- 
tian Gnostic,"  by  the  Very  Rev.  A.  F.  Hewit,  D.  D.,  C  S.  P., 
in  the  American  Catholic  Quarterly  Revie-iV,  January,  1S91. 


A  GNOS  TIC  ISM  A  ND  E  VOL  UTION.         277 

says  we  must  worship  humanity  in  its  entirety. 
Huxley,  however,  dissents  from  this  view,  and  tells 
us  that  it  is  not  humanity,  but  the  cosmos,  the  vis- 
ible material  universe,  which  should  constitute- the 
object  of  our  highest  veneration  and  religious  emo- 
tion. Herbert  Spencer  is  even  more  nebulous  and 
mystical.  His  deity  is  an  unknowable  energy,  "im- 
personal, unconscious,  unthinking  and  unthinkable." 
God  is  "  the  great  enigma  which  he  [man]  knows 
cannot  be  solved,"  and  religion  can  at  best  be  con- 
cerned only  with  "a  consciousness  of  a  mystery  which 
can  never  be  fathomed."  According  to  Mr.  Harri- 
son, however — the  brilliant  critic  of  the  views  pro- 
pounded by  Huxley,  the  doughty  combatant  who 
has  so  frequently  run  full  atilt  against  the  champions 
of  Agnosticism — Spencer's  Unknowable  is  "  an  ever- 
present  conundrum  to  be  everlastingly  given  up  ; " 
his  Something,  or  All-Being,  is  a  pure  negation,  "an 
All-Nothingness,  an  x^  and  an  Everlasting  No." 
Verily  it  is  of  such,  "  vain  in  their  thoughts  and 
darkened  in  their  foolish  heart,"  that  the  Apos- 
tle of  the  Gentiles  speaks  when  he  declares  that 
they  "  changed  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie ;  and 
worshipped  and  served  the  creature  rather  than  the 
Creator." ' 

But  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  dilate  on  the  teach- 
ings of  Agnosticism.  My  sole  object  is  to  indicate 
briefly  some  of  its  more  patent  and  fundamental 
errors.  A  detailed  examination  and  refutation  of 
them  does  not  come  within  the  purview  of  our  sub- 
ject.   ,For  such    examination   and    refutation,  the 

*  "Romans,"  chap,  i,  25. 


278  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

reader  is  referred  to  works  which  treat  of  these 
topics  ex  professo. '  It  suffices  for  our  present  pur- 
pose to  know  the  relation  of  Agnosticism  to  Evolu- 
tion ;  to  know  that  a  particular  phase  of  Evolution 
is  so  intimately  connected  with  Agnosticism,  that  it 
cannot  be  disassociated  from  it,  to  realize  that 
Agnosticism,  and  agnostic  Evolution,  are  practically 
as  synonymous  as  are  Atheistic  Evolution  and 
Monism.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  appreciate  the  fact 
that  Agnosticism  and  Monism  are  fundamentally 
erroneous,  to  understand  that  both  monistic  and 
agnostic  Evolution  are  untenable  and  inconsistent 
with  the  teaching  of  Theism  and  with  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity  ;  that  they  are  illegitimate  inductions 
from  the  known  data  of  veritable  science,  and  utterly 
at  variance  with  the  primary  concepts  of  genuine 
philosophy.  We  need,  consequently,  consider  them 
no  further.  Evolution,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
held  by  the  Monist  and  Agnostic,  is  so  obviously  in 
positive  contradiction  to  the  leading  tenets  of 
Theism,  that  it  may  forthwith  be  dismissed  as  not 
only  untenable,  but  as  unwarranted  by  fact  and 
experiment,  and  negatived  by  the  incontestable 
principles  of  sound  metaphysics  and  Catholic  Dogma. 

'  See  especially :  "Agnosticism  and  Religion,"  by  the  Rev. 
George  J.  Lucas,  D.D.;  chaps,  in  and  iv  of  "  The  Great  En- 
igma," by  W.  S.  Lilly,  and  the  succinct  and  philosophical 
"  Agnosticism,"  by  the  Right  Rev.  J.  L.Spalding,  D.D.  The 
reader  will  likewise  find  many  valuable  and  suggestive  pages  in 
Balfour's  "  Foundations  of  Belief,"  and  in  a  review  of  this  work 
bv  Mgr.  Mercier,  in  the  Revue  Neo-Scolastiqne,  for  October, 
1S95. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THEISM   AND   EVOLUTION. 
Evolution  and  Faith. 

HAVING  eliminated  from  our  discussion  the 
forms  of  Evolution  held  by  the  divers  schools 
of  monists  and  agnostics,  there  now  remains  but 
the  third  form,  known  as  theistic  Evolution.  Can 
we,  then,  consistently  with  the  certain  deductions  of 
science  and  philosophy,  and  in  acy:ordance  with  the 
positive  dogmas  of  faith — can  we  as  Christians,  as 
Catholics,  who  accept  without  reserve  all  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Church,  give  our  assent  to  theistic  Evolu- 
tion ?  This  is  a  question  of  paramount  importance, 
one  which  is  daily  growing  in  interest,  and  one  for 
an  answer  to  which  the  reading  public  has  long  been 
clamoring.  And  with  it  must  also  be  answered 
a  certain  number  of  cognate  questions,  of  scarcely 
less  interest  and  importance  than  the  main  question 
of  Evolution  itself. 

I  have  elsewhere'  shown  that  the  principles  of 
theistic  Evolution — the  Evolution,  namely,  which 
admits  the  existence  of  a  God,  and  the  develop- 
ment, under  the  action  of  His  Providence,  of  the 
universe  and  all  it  contains — were  accepted  and  de- 
fended by  some  of  the  most  eminent  Doctors  of  the 
early  Greek  and  Latin  Churches.     It  was  a  brilliant 

'"Bible,  Science  and  Faith,"  part  I,  chaps,  in  and  iv. 

(279) 


280  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

luminary  of  the  Oriental  Church,  St.  Gregory  of 
Nyssa,  who  first  clearly  conceived  and  formulated 
the  nebular  hypothesis,  which  was  long  centuries 
subsequently  elaborated  by  Laplace,  Herschel  and 
Faye.  The  learned  prelate  found  no  difficulty  in 
admitting  the  action  of  secondary  causes,  in  the  for- 
mation of  the  universe  from  the  primal  matter  which 
the  Almighty  had  directly  created.  According  to 
Gregory  and  his  school,  God  created  matter  in  a 
formless  or  nebulous  condition,  but  impressed  on 
this  matter  the  power  of  developing  into  all  the 
various  forms  which  it  afterwards  assumed.  The 
universe  and  all  it  contains,  the  earth  and  all  that 
inhabits  it — plants,  animals,  man — were  created  by 
God,  but  they  were  created  in  different  ways.  The 
primitive  material,  the  nebulous  matter,  from  which 
all  things  were  fashioned,  was  created  by  God 
directly  and  immediately ;  whereas,  all  the  multi- 
tudinous creatures  of  the  visible  world,  were  produced 
by  Him  indirectly  and  mediately,  that  is,  by  the 
operation  of  secondary  causes  and  what  are  com- 
monly called  the  laws  of  nature. 

Teachings  of  St.  Augustine. 

St.  Augustine  not  only  accepted  the  conclusions 
of  his  illustrious  Greek  predecessor,  but  he  went 
much  further  than  the  Bishop  of  Nyssa.  He  was, 
likewise,  much  more  explicit,  especially  in  what  con- 
cerned the  development  of  the  various  forms  of  ani- 
mal and  vegetable  life.  According  to  the  Doctor  of 
Hippo,  God  did  not  create  the  world  as  it  now  appears, 
but  only  the  primordial  matter  of  which  it  is  composed. 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  281 

Not  only  the  diverse  forms  of  inorganic  matter,  rocks, 
minerals,  cr>'stals,  were  created  by  the  operation  of 
secondary  causes,  but  plants  and  animals  were  also 
the  products  of  such  causes.  For  God,  the  saint  in- 
sists, created  the  manifold  forms  of  terrestrial  life, 
not  directly  but  in  germ ;  potentially  and  causally — 
potcntialiter  atque  causaliter.  In  commenting  on 
the  words  of  Genesis :  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  the 
green  herb,"  he  declares  that  plants  were  created 
not  directly  and  immediately,  but  causally  and  po- 
tentially, in  fieri,  in  causa ;  that  the  earth  received 
from  God  the  power  of  producing  herb  and  tree, 
produccndi  accepisse  virtntem. 

In  his  great  work  on  the  Trinity,  the  illustrious 
Doctor  tells  us  that :  "  The  hidden  seeds  of  all  things 
that  are  born  corporeally  and  visibly,  are  concealed 
in  the  corporeal  elements  of  the  world."  We  are  un- 
able to  see  them  with  our  eyes,  "  but  we  can  con- 
jecture their  existence  from  our  reason."  They  are 
quite  different  from  "  those  seeds  that  are  visible  at 
once  to  our  eyes,  from  fruits  and  living  things."  It 
is  indeed  from  such  hidden  and  invisible  seeds  that 
"  The  waters,  at  the  bidding  of  the  Creator,  produced 
the  first  swimming  creatures  and  fowl,  and  that  the 
earth  brought  forth  the  first  buds  after  their  kind, 
and  the  first  living  creatures  after  their  kind."  They 
lay  dormant,  as  it  were,  until  long  aeons  after  the 
creation  of  matter,  because  "  suitable  combinations  of 
circumstances  were  wanting,  whereby  they  might  be 
enabled  to  burst  forth  and  complete  their  species." 

"The  world,"  he  avers,  "is  pregnant  with  the 
causes  of  things    that    are    coming   to  the   birth ; 


282  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

which  are  not  created  in  it,  except  from  the  highest 
essence,  where  nothing  either  springs  up  or  dies, 
either  begins  to  be  or  ceases."  But  the  Creator  of 
these  seeds,  the  Cause  of  these  causes.  Causa 
causarum,  is  at  the  same  time  the  Creator  of  all 
things  that  exist.  He  carefully  distinguishes  "  God 
creating  and  forming  within,  from  the  works  of  the 
creature  which  are  applied  from  without."  "  In  the 
creation  of  visible  things  it  is  God,"  he  affirms,  "  that 
works  from  within,  but  the  exterior  operations," 
that  is,  the  operations  of  creatures  or  those  of 
divers  physical  forces,  "are  applied  by  Him  to  that 
nature  of  things  wherein  He  creates  all  things." 
**  For,"  the  Saint  continues,  "  it  is  one  thing  to  make 
and  administer  the  creature  from  the  innermost  and 
highest  turning  point  of  causation,  which  He  alone 
does  who  is  God,  the  Creator;  but  quite  another 
thing  to  apply  some  operation  from  without,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  strength  and  faculties  assigned  to  each 
by  Him,  that  that  which  is  created  may  come  forth 
into  being  at  this  time  or  at  that,  or  in  this  way  or 
that  way.  For  all  things,  in  the  way  of  origin  and 
beginning,  have  already  been  created  in  a  kind  of 
texture  of  the  elements,  in  quadam  textura  element- 
orum ;  but  they  can  come  forth  only  when  oppor- 
tunity offers,  acceptis  opportunitatibus!' ' 


^  "Aliud  est  enim  ex  intimo  at  summo  causarum  cardine  con- 
dere  atque  administrare  creaturam,  quod  qui  facit,  solus  creator 
est  Deus  :  aliud  autem  pro  distributis  ab  illo  viribus  at  iacultati- 
bus  aliquam  oparationem  foris  secus  admovere,  ut  tunc  vel  tunc, 
sic  vel  sic,  axaat  quod  creatur.  Ista  quippe  originaliter  ac  pri- 
mordialiter  in  quadam  textura  elementorum  cuncta  jam  creata 
sunt,  sed  acceptis  opportunitatibus  prodeunt."  "  De  Trinitate," 
lib.  Ill,  cap.  IX.    In  his  great  work,  "  De  Genesi  ad  Litteram," 


THEISM  A  ND  E  VOL  UTION.  288 

God,  then,  according  to  St.  Augustine,  created 
matter  directly  and  immediately.  On  this  primor- 
dial or  elementary  matter  He  impressed  certain 
causal  reasons,  causales  rationes;  that  is,  He  gave  it 
certain  powers,  and  imposed  on  it  certain  laws,  in 
virtue  of  which  it  evolved  into  all  the  myriad  forms 
which  we  now  behold.  The  saint  does  not  tell  us 
by  what  laws  or  processes  the  Creator  acted.  He 
makes  no  attempt  to  determine  what  are  the  factors 
of  organic  development.  He  limits  himself  to  a 
general  statement  of  the  fact  of  Evolution,  of  prog- 
ress from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  from  the 
homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous,  from  simple 
primordial  elements  to  the  countless,  varied,  com- 
plicated structures  of  animated  nature. 

Has  any  modern  philosopher  stated  more  clearly 
the  salient  facts  of  organic  Evolution  ?     Has  anyone 


lib.  IV,  cap.  XXIII,  the  saint  beautifully  develops  the  evolu- 
tionary idea,  when  he  exhibits  the  analogy  between  the  growth 
of  a  tree  from  the  seed  and  the  Evolution  of  the  world  from  its 
primordial  elements.  Speaking  of  the  gradual  growth  of  the 
tree — trunk,  branches,  leaves,  fruit — from  the  seed,  he  declares  : 
"  In  semine  ergo  ilia  omnia  fuerunt  primitus,  non  mole  corporeae 
magnitudinis  sed  vi  potentiaque  causali."  After  asking  the  ques- 
tion :  "  Quid  enim  ex  arbore  ilia  surgit  aut  pendet,  quod  non  ex 
quodam  occulto  thesauro  seminis  illius  extractum  atque  de- 
promptum  est  ?  "  he  continues  with  rare  philosophical  acumen  : 
"  sicut  autem  in  ipso  grano  invisibiliter  erant  omnia  simul  quae 
per  tempora  in  arborem  surgerent;  ita  ipse  mundus  cogitandus 
est,  cum  Deus  simul  omnia  creavit,  habuisse  simul  omnia  quae  in 
illo  et  cum  illo  facta  sunt,  quando  factus  est  dies ;  non  solum 
coelum  cum  sole  et  luna  et  sideribus,  quorum  species  manet  motu 
rotabili,  et  terram  et  abyssos,  quie  velut  inconstantes  motus  pa- 
tiantur  atque  inferius  adjuncta  partem  alteram  mundo  conferunt; 
sed  etiam  ilia  quae  aqua  et  terra  produxit  potentialiter  atque 
causaliter,  priusquam  per  temporum  moras  ita  exorirentur,  quo 
modo  nobis  jam  nota  sunt  in  eis  operibus,  quae  Deus  usque  nunc 
opera  tur." 


284  E  VOL  UTION  AND  DOGMA. 

insisted  more  strongly  on  the  reign  of  law  in  na- 
ture, or  discriminated  more  keenly  between  the 
operations  of  the  Creator  and  those  of  the  creature? 
Has  anyone  reahzed  more  fully  the  functions  of  a 
First  Cause,  as  compared  with  those  of  causes  which 
are  but  secondary  or  physical?  If  so,  I  am  not 
aware  of  it.  Modern  scientists  have,  indeed,  a  far 
more  detailed  knowledge  of  the  divers  forms  of 
terrestrial  life  than  had  the  philosophical  Bishop 
of  Hippo;  they  have  a  more  comprehensive  view  of 
nature  than  was  possible  in  his  day,  but  they  have 
not,  with  all  their  knowledge  and  superior  advan- 
tages, been  able  to  formulate  the  general  theory  of 
Evolution  a  whit  more  clearly,  than  we  find  it  ex- 
pressed in  the  writings  of  the  Doctor  of  Grace,  who 
wrote  nearly  fifteen  centuries  ago. 

Views  of  the  Angelic  Doctor. 

The  Angelic  Doctor  takes  up  the  teachings  of 
St.  Augustine  and  makes  them  his  own.  He  dis- 
cusses them  according  to  the  scholastic  method,  and 
with  a  lucidity  and  a  comprehensiveness  that  leave 
nothing  to  be  desired.  He  carefully  distinguishes 
between  creation  proper,  and  the  production  or  gen- 
eration of  things  from  preexisting  material;  be- 
tween the  operations  of  absolute  Creative  Energy, 
and  those  which  may  be  performed  by  secondary 
causes.  Indeed,  so  exhaustive  and  so  complete  is 
his  treatment  of  the  origin  and  Evolution  of  the 
material  universe  and  all  it  contains ;  so  clear  and 
so  conclusive  his  argumentation,  that  his  successors 
have  found  but  little  to  add  to  his  brilliant  proposi- 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  285 

tions  respecting  the  genesis  of  the  world  and  its 
inhabitants. 

The  primordial  Divine  act  of  creation,  according 
to  St.  Thomas,  following  St.  Augustine,  consisted  in 
the  creation,  ex  nihilo,  of  three  classes  of  creatures ; 
spiritual  intelligences,  the  heavenly  bodies  and  sim- 
ple bodies,  or  elements.  According  to  the  physical 
theories  of  the  time,  the  composition  of  the  celes- 
tial bodies  was  supposed  to  be  different  from  that 
of  the  earth.  They  were  supposed  to  be  incapable 
of  generation  or  corruption ; '  to  be  constituted  of 
elementary  matter,  indeed,  but  matter  unlike  that 
of  sublunary  bodies,  in  that  it  is  incorruptible.  We 
now  know  that  mediaeval  philosophers  were  in  error 
on  this  point.  Spectrum  analysis  has  demonstrated 
that  all  the  celestial  bodies  have  the  same  compo- 
sition as  our  earth,  and  that  the  constitution  of  the 
material  universe  is  identical  throughout  its  vast 
expanse.  Eliminating  this  error,  which  was  one 
of  physics,  and  not  one  of  philosophy  or  theology, 
and  one  which  in  nowise  impairs  the  teachings  of 


*  The  scholastic  use  of  the  words  '•  generation  "  and  "  corrup- 
tion "  must  carefully-  be  distinguished  from  the  ordinary  meaning 
of  these  terms.  "  In  its  widest  sense,"  as  Father  Harper  tells  us, 
"generation  includes  all  new  production  even  b_y  the  creative 
act.  In  a  more  restricted  sense,  it  includes  all  transformations, 
accidental  as  well  as  substantial.  In  a  still  more  restricted 
sense,  substantial  transformations  only.  Yet  more  specially, 
the  natural  production  of  living  things ;  most  specially,  the 
natural  production  of  man."  Corruption,  as  understood  by  the 
Schoolmen,  means,  not  "retrograde  transformation,  such  as 
occurs,  for  instance,  in  the  death  of  a  living  entity,"  but  "  the 
dissolution  of  a  body  by  the  expulsion  of  that  substantial  form  by 
which  it  had  been  previously  actuated.  In  the  order  of  nature, 
it  is  the  invariable  accompaniment  of  generation."  Cf.  "  Meta- 
physics of  the  School,"  vol.  II,  glossary,  and  pp.  273-279. 


286  E  VOL UTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  Angelic  Doctor  regarding  creation,  we  have, 
according  to  St.  Thomas,  the  creative  act  termi- 
nating in  elementary  matter  and  spiritual  sub- 
stance. 

But  here  we  must  clearly  distinguish  between 
elementary  matter,  properly  so  called — the  elements 
of  which  St.  Thomas  speaks — and  primal  matter, 
materia  prima,  which  was  given  such  prominence 
in  the  philosophical  works  of  the  Schoolmen.  Ac- 
cording to  Aristotle,  who  follows  Empedocles,  there 
are  four  primitive  elements,  earth,  air,  fire  and 
water;  and  from  these,  by  suitable  combinations,  all 
other  material  substances  are  derived.  The  Scho- 
lastics, in  accepting  the  philosophy  of  the  Stagirite, 
naturally  adopted  his  theory  of  the  four  elements. 
Chemistry,  however,  has  long  since  exploded  this 
theory,  as  spectrum  analysis  has  disproved  the  me- 
diaeval view  regarding  the  composition  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies.  But  whether  there  are  four  elements, 
as  the  Schoolmen  imagined,  or  some  sixty  odd,  as 
modern  chemists  maintain,  or  but  one  only,  as  some 
of  the  old  Greek  philosophers  believed,  and  as  cer- 
tain men  of  science  still  contend,  it  is  quite  immaterial 
so  far  as  our  present  argument  is  concerned.  What 
is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  is,  that  the  elementary 
matter  of  which  the  universe  is  composed,  whether 
it  be  of  one  or  of  many  kinds,  was,  in  the  beginning, 
created  by  God  from  nothing.  For  it  is  manifest 
that  it  was  not  the  intention  of  the  Angel  of  the 
Schools,  to  commit  his  followers  to  any  mere  phys- 
ical theory  respecting  the  number  and  nature  of 
the  elements,  especially  when  the  ideas  entertained 


THEISM  AND  E  VOL UTION.  287 

regarding  these  subjects  were  as  vague  and  diverse 
as  they  are  known  to  have  been  in  his  day.  Neither 
he  nor  his  contemporaries  had  any  means  of  throw- 
ing light  on  the  questions  involved.  Even  now, 
after  all  the  splendid  triumphs  which  chemistry 
has  witnessed  since  the  epoch-making  achievements 
of  Lavoisier,  we  are  still  in  ignorance  as  to  the 
exact  number  of  elements  existing,  and  are  yet  de- 
bating whether  all  the  so-called  elements  may  not 
be  so  many  allotropic  conditions  of  one  and  the 
same  kind  of  matter.  But  what  the  Angelic  Doctor 
did  wish  to  insist  on,  what  he  wished  specially  to 
bring  home  to  his  hearers,  was  the  great  dogmatic 
truth  according  to  which  God  is  the  Creator  of  all 
things,  material  and  immaterial,  visible  and  invisi- 
ble. 

Materia  prima,  however,  as  understood  by  the 
Scholastics,  is  quite  different  from  what  we  know  as 
elementary  matter.  In  all  bodies  subject  to  genera- 
tion and  corruption,  it  is,  they  tell  us,  numerically 
one — una  numero  in  omnibus. '  It  is  one  and  the  same 
in  all  the  components  of  the  earth,  and  in  all  the  con- 
stituent orbs  of  space.  Of  its  very  nature  it  is  "  un- 
generated,  ungenerative,  indivisible,  incorruptible, 
indestructible."  *  But  this  materia  prima,  although 
an  entity,  is  not  a  complete  substance.  It  cannot 
exist  by  itself,  but  must  be  actuated  by  some  form. 
For  it  is  form  which  determines  matter   and  gives 

* "  Sciendum  est  etiam,  quod  materia  prima  dicitur  una 
numero  in  omnibus."  Opusc.  XXXI,  "  De  Principiis  Nature," 
ante  med. 

* "  Sciendum  est  quod  materia  prima,  et  etiam  forma,  non 
generatur  neque  corrupitur."  Op.  cit. 


288  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

it  being.'  An  element,  accordingly,  is  a  composite 
entity,  a  composttum,  constituted  of  matter — which 
is  the  subject,  potentiality  or  inferior  part  of  the 
composite — and  form,  which  is  the  act  or  superior 
part.  And  although  there  is  but  one  matter,  there 
are  many  forms."  And  it  is  because  this  one  matter 
is  actuated  by  diverse  forms,  that  we  have  the  mani- 
fold elements  which  constitute  the  material  uni- 
verse. 

Seminales   Rationes. 

But  these  elements,  composed  of  matter  and 
form,  required  something  more,  in  order  to  be  com- 
petent to  enter  into  combinations  and  to  give  rise  to 
higher  and  more  complex  substances. 

1  "  Simpliciter  loquendo,  forma  dat  esse  materiae.  .  .  . 
Sciendum  etiam,  quod  licet  materia  prima  non  habeat  in  sua 
ratione  aliquam  formam,  .  .  .  materia  tamen  numquam 
denudatur  a  forma.  .  .  .  Per  se  autem  numquam  potest  esse; 
quia  cum  in  ratione  sua  non  habeat  aliquam  formam,  non  potest 
esse  in  actu,  cum  esse  actu  non  sit  nisi  a  forma ;  sed  est  solum 
in  potentia."  Ibidem.  The  whole  of  this  masterly  and  inter- 
esting treatise  should  be  carefully  pondered  by  those  who  desire 
to  know  the  mind  of  the  saintly  Doctor  respecting  the  nature 
of  matter. 

"The  words  "  matter"  and  "form,"  it  will  be  observed,  are 
here  employed  in  a  strictly  metaphysical  or  technical  sense. 
Matter  is  that  element  in  an  entity  which  is  indeterminate,  pas- 
siv-e,  potential,  "  of  all  real  entities  the  nearest  to  nothingness." 
It  is  one  of  the  two  essential  constituents  of  all  bodies.  The 
other  element  or  constituent  of  bodies  is  form.  It  is  that  which 
differentiates  and  actuates  matter ;  which  determines  the  spe- 
cific nature  of  any  composite.  "  The  matter  in  which  form  ad- 
heres," according  to  Aristotle,  "  is  not  absolutely  non-existent ; 
it  exists  as  possibility — 6vvaiiis,  potentia.  Form,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  the  accomplishment,  the  realization — hTE?.exEta,  htpyeia, 
actus — of  this  possibility.  For  an  elaborate  explanation  of  these 
terms,  see  chaps,  ii  and  in,  vol.  II,  of  Harper's  "  Metaphysics 
of  the  School."  Cf.  also,  §  48,  vol.  I,  of  Ueberweg's  "  History 
of  Philosophy." 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  289 

This  something  more,  the  Angelic  Doctor  desig- 
nates seminal  forces,  or  influences — seminales  rationes. 
"  The  powers  lodged  in  matter,"  he  tells  us,  "  by 
which  natural  effects  result,  are  called  seminales  ra- 
tiones. The  complete  active  powers  in  nature,  with 
the  corresponding  passive  powers — as  heat  and  cold, 
the  form  of  fire,  the  power  of  the  sun,  and  the 
like — are  called  seminales  rationes.  They  are  called 
seminal,  not  by  reason  of  any  imperfection  of  en- 
tity that  they  may  be  supposed  to  have,  like  the  form- 
ative virtue  in  seed  ;  but  because  on  the  individual 
things  at  first  created,  such  powers  were  conferred  by 
the  operations  of  the  six  days,  so  that  out  of  them, 
as  though  from  certain  seeds,  natural  entities  might 
be  produced  and  multiplied."  The  physical  forces — 
heat,  light,  electricity  and  magnetism — would,  doubt- 
less, in  modern  scientific  terminology,  correspond  to 
the  seminales  rationes^  of  the  Angelic  Doctor,  as 
they  are  efficient  in  producing  changes  in  matter 
and  in  disposing  it  for  that  gradual  Evolution  which 
has  obtained  in  the  material  universe. 

In  the  beginning,  then,  God  created  primordial 
matter,  which  was  actuated  by  various  substantial 
forms.  With  the  elements  thus  created  were  asso- 
ciated certain  seminal  infiuences  —  certain  physical 
forces,  we  now  should  say — and  the  various  com- 
pounds which  subsequently  resulted  from  the  action 
of  these  forces,  on  the  diverse  elements  created,  were 


*  For  an  elaborate  explanation  of  the  meaning  of  seminales 
rationes,  according  to  the  mind  of  the  Angelic  Doctor,  see  the 
"Metaphysics  of  the  School,"  vol.  II,  appendix  A,  nn.  iii  and 
IV,  and  vol.  Ill,  part  I,  glossary,  sub  vocibus. 

E.-19 


290  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  product  of  generation  and  not  of  creation.  There 
was  development,  Evolution,  under  the  action  of 
second  causes,  from  the  simple  elements  to  the  high- 
est inorganic  and  organic  compounds ;  from  the 
lowest  kinds  of  brute  matter  to  the  highest  bodily 
representatives  of  animated  nature  ;  but  there  was 
nothing  requiring  anew  creative  action  or  extraor- 
dinary interventions,  except,  of  course,  the  human 
soul. 

After  this  primordial  creation,  God  continued 
and  sustained  His  work  by  His  Providence.  Matter 
was  then  under  the  action  of  secondary  causes,  under 
what  science  calls  the  reign  of  law,  and  under  the 
action  of  these  secondary  causes,  under  the  influence 
of  forces  and  laws  imposed  on  it  by  God  in  the  be- 
ginning, it  still  remains,  and  shall  remain,  until  time 
is  no  more 

Creation  According  to  Scripture. 

This  teaching  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  dec- 
larations of  the  opening  chapter  of  Genesis,  which 
speaks  first  of  the  creation  of  matter,  then  of  the 
production  from  matter  of  plants  and  animals.  It  is 
consistent,  too,  with  the  teachings  of  science,  which 
affirm  that  the  material  universe  was  once  but  a 
nebulous  mass,  which  in  the  course  of  time  condensed 
into  solid  bodies,  the  stars  and  planets,  and  which, 
after  countless  ages  and  by  a  gradual  Evolution  un- 
der the  action  of  natural  laws,  generated  those  myr- 
iad objects  of  passing  beauty  and  marvelous  com- 
plexity which  we  now  so  much  admire. 


THEISM  AND  B  VOL UTION.  291 

Matter  alone,  insists  St.  Thomas,  in  speaking  of 
the  visible  universe,  was  created,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  term,  and  in  this  he  but  follows  the  indications 
of  the  Mosaic  narrative  of  creation,  and  St.  Augus- 
tine's interpretation  of  the  work  of  the  six  days. 
Plants  and  animals  were  generated  or  produced  from 
preexisting  material  —  "were  gradually  developed, 
by  natural  operations,  under  the  Divine  administra- 
tion." 

"  In  those  first  days,"  he  tells  us,  "  God  created 
the  creature  in  its  origin  and  cause — originaliter,  vel 
causaliter,  and  afterwards  rested  from  this  work. 
Nevertheless,  He  subsequently,  until  now,  works  ac- 
cording to  the  administration  of  created  things  by 
the  work  of  propagation.  Now,  to  produce  plants 
from  the  earth  belongs  to  the  work  of  propagation  ; 
therefore,  on  the  third  day  plants  were  not  produced 
in  act,  but  only  in  their  cause — Non  ergo  in  tertia  die 
product CB  sunt  plant CB  in  actu  sed  causaliter  tantum."  ' 

Elsewhere,  in  defending  the  opinion  of  St.  Au- 
gustine, he  writes  :  "  When  it  is  said,  '  Let  the  earth 
bring  forth  the  green  herb,'  Gen.  i,  ir,  it  is  not 
meant  that  plants  were  then  produced  actually  in 
their  proper  nature,  but  that  there  was  given  to  the 
earth  a  germinative  power  to  produce  plants  by  the 
work  of  propagation  ;  so  that  the  earth  is  then  said 
to  have  brought  forth  the  green  herb  and  the  tree 
yielding  fruit  in  this  wise,  viz.,  that  it  received  the 
power  of  producing  them— producendi  accepisse  vir- 
tutem^     And  this  he  confirms  by  the  authority  of 


* "  Summa,"  Ise,  Lxix  :  2. 


292  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Scripture,  Gen.  ii,  4 — where  it  is  said  :  "  These  are 
the  generations  of  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  when 
they  were  created,  in  the  day  that  the  Lord  God 
made  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  and  every  plant  of 
the  field,  before  it  sprung  up  in  the  earth,  and  every 
herb  of  the  ground  before  it  grew.'' 

"  From  this  passage,"  continues  the  Angelic 
Doctor,  '*  two  things  are  elicited :  First,  that  all  the 
works  of  the  six  days  were  created  in  the  day  that 
God  made  the  heaven  and  earth  and  every  plant  of 
the  field;  and,  accordingly,  that  plants,  which  are 
said  to  have  been  created  on  the  third  day,  were  pro- 
duced at  the  same  time  that  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth.  Secondly,  that  plants  were  then  pro- 
duced, not  in  act,  but  according  to  causal  virtues 
only  ;  in  that  the  power  of  producing  them  was  given 
the  earth — fuerunt  productcB  non  in  actu,  sed  secun- 
dum rationes  causales  tantuin,  quia  data  fuit  virtus 
terrcB  producendi  illas.  This  is  meant,  when  it  is  said 
that  it  produced  every  plant  of  the  field  before  it  act- 
ually sprang  up  in  the  earth  by  the  work  of  adminis- 
tration, and  every  herb  of  the  earth  before  it  actually 
grew.  Prior,  therefore,  to  their  actually  rising  over 
the  earth,  they  were  made  causally  in  the  earth — 
Ante  ergo  quam  actu  orirentur  super  t  err  am,  facta 
sunt  causaliter  in  terra.  This  view  is  likewise  con- 
firmed by  reason.  For  in  those  first  days  God 
created  the  creature  either  in  its  cause  or  in  its 
origin,  or  in  act,  in  the  work  from  which  He  after- 
wards rested.  Nevertheless,  He  subsequently,  until 
now,  works  according  to  the  administration  of  cre- 
ated things  by  the  work  of  propagation.      But  to 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  293 

produce  plants  in  act  out  of  the  earth,  belongs  to 
the  work  of  propagation  ;  because  it  suffices  for  their 
production  that  they  have  the  power  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies,  as  it  were,  for  their  father,  and  the  ef- 
ficacy of  the  earth  in  place  of  a  mother.  Therefore, 
plants  were  not  actually  produced  on  the  third  day, 
but  only  causally.'  After  the  six  days,  however, 
they  were  actually  produced  according  to  their 
proper  species,  and  in  their  proper  nature  by  the 
work  of  administration."  "  In  like  manner  fishes, 
birds  and  animals  were  produced  in  those  six  days 
causally  and  not  actually — Similiter  pisces,  aves  et 
animalia  in  illis  sex  diebus  causaliter,  et  non  actu- 
aliter  product  a  sunt.'' ' 

Such,  then,  is  the  teaching  of  the  illustrious 
bishop  of  Hippo  and  of  the  Angel  of  the  Schools,  re- 
specting creation  and  the  genesis  of  the  material 
universe.  To  the  striking  passages  just  quoted,  I 
can  do  nothing  better  than  add  Father  Harper's 
beautiful  and  eloquent  commentary  as  found  in  his 
splendid  work,  "  The  Metaphysics  of  the  School." 

•  '  In  the  creation,"  declares  the  learned  Jesuit, 
"represented  by  Moses  in  the  manner  best  suited  to 
the  intellectual  calibre  of  the  chosen  people,  under 
the  figure  of  six  days — as  St.  Thomas,  quoting  from 
St.  Augustine,  remarks — the  elements  alone,  among 
earthly  things,  were  actually  produced  by  the  crea- 
tive act ;  but  simultaneously,  in  the  primordial  mat- 


*  It  will  be  noted  that  a  portion  of  this  extract  from  "De 
Potentia,"  is  verbally  identical  with  a  part  of  what  is  found  in  the 
preceding  quotation  from  the  "  Summa." 

^  "  Pot."  q.  iv,  a  2,  28  m. 


294  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

ter  thus  actuated  by  the  elemental  forms,  a  virtue 
was  implanted,  dispositive  towards  all  the  material 
forms  conditionally  necessary  to  the  perfection  of 
the  earthly  universe.  But  it  was  an  ordered  poten- 
tiality ;  so  that  in  the  after  Evolution  of  the  substan- 
tial forms,  the  lower  should  precede  the  higher  ;  and 
that  these  latter  should  presuppose  and  virtually  ab- 
sorb the  former.  Thus  were  the  figurative  six  days 
completed  with  the  sowing  of  the  seed  of  the  future 
cosmos.  There  ensued  thereupon  a  Sabbath  of  rest. 
The  fresh,  elemental  world  was  sown  with  the  germs 
of  future  beauty  in  diverse  forms  of  life,  in  diversity 
of  species,  and  possibly,  varieties  under  the  same 
species.  But  these,  as  yet,  lay  hidden  in  the  womb 
of  nature.  No  earthly  substance  existed  in  act  save 
the  simple  bodies  ;  primordial  matter  under  its  first 
and  lowest  forms.  Such  was  the  earthly  creation 
when  the  first  Sabbath  closed  in  upon  it.  After  this 
Sabbath  followed  the  order  of  Divine  administra- 
tion, wherein,  as  it  continues  to  the  present  hour,  the 
Divine  Wisdom  and  Omnipotence  superintended  the 
natural  Evolution  of  visible  things,  according  to  a 
constant  order  of  His  own  appointing,  amid  cease- 
less cycles  of  alternate  corruptions  and  genera- 
tions. 

"Compound  inanimate  substances  were  first 
evolved  by  means  of  the  seminal  forces  bestowed  on 
nature.  Then,  from  the  bosom  of  these  compounds 
sprang  into  being  the  green  life  of  herb,  plant  and 
tree,  gradually  unfolding  into  higher  and  more  com- 
plex forms  of  loveliness  as  the  ages  rolled  on,  accord- 
ing to  the  virtual  order  imprinted  at  first  upon  the 


THEISM  A ND  EVOLU TION.  295 

obedient  matter.  Thence  onward  marched  the 
grand  procession  of  Hfe,  marking  epochs  as  it  went 
along,  till  it  culminated  in  man,  the  paragon  of 
God's  visible  universe." 

The  Divine  Administration. 

But  what,  it  may  be  inquired,  does  St.  Thomas 
mean  by  the  work  of  Divine  administration  ?  This 
phrase  has  been  frequently  employed,  and  it  is  of 
sufficient  importance  to  demand  an  explanation. 

No  creature,  as  theology  teaches,  is  competent  to 
elicit  a  single  act,  even  the  smallest  and  most  insig- 
nificant,  without  the  cooperation  of  God.  We  can- 
not raise  a  foot,  or  move  a  finger,  without  Divine 
assistance.  This  is  included  in  Divine  administra- 
tion, but  it  is  far  from  being  all  that  is  so  included. 
Over  and  above  this  the  Divine  administration  em- 
braces the  order,  or  laws,  by  which  the  world  is 
governed.     It  embraces,  too,  the  Evolution  of  living 


*"The  Metaphysics  of  the  School,"  vol.  II,  p.  741. 

For  one  who  wishes  to  master  the  doctrines  and  methods  of 
Scholasticism,  there  is  no  work  in  English — if,  indeed,  there  is 
in  any  language — that  can  be  studied  with  more  profit  than  this 
thorough  and  exhaustive  treatise  of  Father  Harper's.  No  one 
should  attempt  to  discuss  the  teachings  of  the  Schoolmen  re- 
specting derivative  creation,  who  has  not  mastered  Appendix 
A,  in  vol.  II,  on  The  Teaching  of  St.  Thomas  Touching  the 
Genesis  of  the  Material  Universe,  and  the  appendix  in  vol.  Ill, 
part  I,  on  The  Teaching  of  the  Angelic  Doctor  Touching  the 
Efficient  Causes  of  the  Generation  of  Living  Bodies  in  Its  Bear- 
ings on  Modern  Physical  Discoveries.  Both  these  appendices 
are  veritable  magazines  of  fact  and  argumentation  that  cannot 
be  duplicated  elsewhere.  I  am  indebted  to  the  distinguished 
author,  not  only  for  the  translation  of  many  of  the  preceding 
quotations  from  the  Angelic  Doctor,  but  also  for  manj-  valuable 
suggestions  regarding  the  manner  of  treatment  of  theistic 
Evolution  from  the  standpoint  of  patristic  and  scholastic 
philosophy. 


296  E  VOL  U TION  A  ND  D  OGMA . 

things,  without  parentage,  out  of  the  potentiality  of 
matter,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  it  in- 
cludes the  proximate  disposition  of  matter  for  the 
Evolution  of  organic  from  inorganic  matter,  and  the 
higher  from  the  lower  forms  of  life.  God,  conse- 
quently, "  must  have  been  the  sole  efificient  Cause  of 
the  organization  requisite,  and,  therefore,  in  the 
strictest  sense.  He  is  said  to  have  formed  such  living 
things,  and,  in  particular,  the  human  body,  out  of  pre- 
existent  matter." 

In  the  teachings  of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Thomas 
respecting  the  creation  and  Evolution  of  the  sum  of 
all  things,  there  is  nothing  uncertain,  equivocal  or 
vacillating.  True  to  the  declaration  of  the  Inspired 
Record,  and  true  to  the  faith  of  the  Church  from 
the  earliest  ages  of  her  history,  they  teach  that  in 
the  beginning  God  created  all  things,  visible  and  in- 
visible, and  that  He  still  continues  to  protect  and 
govern  by  His  Providence  all  things  which  He  hath 
made,  "  reaching  from  end  to  end  mightily,  and  or- 
dering all  things  sweetly."  '  They  tell  us,  not  only 
that  the  Creator  is  "  Lord  of  Heaven  and  earth,  Al- 
mighty, Eternal,  Immense,  Incomprehensible,  Infin- 
ite in  intelligence,  in  will  and  in  all  perfections,"  not 
only  that  He  is  '*  absolutely  simple  and  immutable 
spiritual  substance,  really  and  essentially  distinct 
from  the  world,"  but  also  that  he  is  omnipresent, 
omniscient ;  that  for  Him  there  is  no  past  nor  future  ; 
that  all  is  present,  and  that  "  all  things  are  bare 
and  open  to  His  eyes."' 

^  Wisdom,  viii,  i. 
"^  Heb.  iv,  13. 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  297 

According  to  the  Fathers  and  the  Schoolmen, 
therefore,  as  well  as  according  to  Catholic  Dogma, 
God  is  the  First  Cause ;  finite  beings  are  but  second- 
ary causes.  God  is  the  Primary  Cause — Causa  Caus- 
arum;  while  all  finite  causes  are  merely  instrumental. 
God  is  preeminently  the  integral  and  efficient  Cause 
of  all  things,  for  He,  preeminently,  is  the  Cause 
"  whence,"  to  use  the  words  of  Aristotle,  "is  the  first 
beginning  of  change  or  of  rest." 

In  the  language  of  the  Scholastics,  He  is  the 
Form  of  forms ;  Absolute  Form  because  Absolute 
Act.  He  is  the  Principiant  of  principiants,  the  first 
Beginning — Apyjj,  Principium — of  all  that  exists  or 
can  exist. 

Efficient  Causality  of  Creatures. 

But  God,  although  the  true,  efficient  Cause  of 
all  things,  has  willed,  in  order  to  manifest  more 
clearly  His  wisdom  and  power  and  love,  to  re- 
ceive the  cooperation  of  His  creatures,  and  to  con- 
fer on  them,  as  St.  Thomas  puts  it,  *'  the  dignity  of 
causality — dignitatem  causandi  conferre  voluit."  It 
is  not,  however,  as  the  Angelic  Doctor  declares, 
**  from  any  indigence  in  God  that  He  wants  other 
causes  for  the  act  of  production."  He  does  not  re- 
quire the  cooperation  of  secondary  causes  because 
He  is  unable  to  dispense  with  their  aid.  He  is  none 
the  less  omnipotent  because  He  has  chosen  to  act  in 
conjunction  with  works  of  His  own  hand,  for  it  is 
manifest  that  He  who  has  created  the  causes,  is  able 
to  produce  the  effects  which  proceed  from  such 
causes. 


298  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA 

I  have  said  that  the  efficient  causality  of  crea- 
tures serves  to  disclose  the  wisdom  and  power  and 
love  of  the  Creator.  It  is  true,  but  here  again  I 
shall  quote  from  the  eloquent  and  profound  Father 
Harper,  who  so  beautifully  sums  up  all  that  may  be 
said  on  the  subject,  that  I  need  make  no  apology  for 
quoting  him  in  full. 

The  efficient  causality  of  the  creature  serves  to 
manifest  God's  wisdom,  "  for  there  is  greater  elabora- 
tion of  design.  To  plan  out  a  universe  of  finite  en- 
tities, differing  in  essence  and  in  grades  of  perfection, 
is  doubtless  a  work  of  superhuman  wisdom  ;  but  to 
include  in  the  design  the  further  idea,  of  conferring 
on  these  entities  a  complex  variety  of  forces,  quali- 
ties, active  and  passive,  faculties  by  virtue  of  which 
nature  should  ever  grow  out  of  itself  and  develop 
from  lower  to  higher  forms  of  existence,  and  should 
multiply  along  definite  lines  of  being ;  to  conceive  a 
world  whose  constituents  should  ceaselessly  energize 
on  one  another,  yet  without  confusion  and  in  an  ad- 
mirable order;  to  allow  to  the  creature  its  own  proper 
causality,  and  yet,  even  spite  of  the  manifold  action 
of  free  will  in  a  countless  multiplicity  of  immortal  in- 
telligences, to  elaborate  a  perfect  unity ;  surely  this 
is  an  incalculably  higher  manifestation  of  wisdom. 
It  serves  to  manifest  the  power  of  the  Creator ;  for 
every  cause  is  proportioned  to  the  effect.  But  the 
completion  of  a  design  such  as  has  been  described,  is 
a  more  noble  effect  than  if  every  production  of 
natural  operation  were  the  result  of  immediate  crea- 
tion. The  manufacture  of  a  watch  is  a  noble  work 
of  art;  but  if  a  watch  should  be  made  capable  of 


THEISM  A ND  EVOLU TION.  290 

constructing  other  watches  in  succession,  and  of  wind- 
ing up,  regulating,  cleaning,  repairing  its  offspring, 
there  is  no  one  who  would  not  be  free  to  admit,  that 
the  inventor  would  possess  a  virtue  of  operation  in- 
comparably superior  to  his  fellow-men.  It  serves  to 
manifest  the  love  and  goodness  of  the  Creator ;  since 
the  Divine  communication  is  more  complete.  Love 
shows  itself  in  the  desire  of  communicating  its  own 
perfection  to  the  object  of  love  ;  it  is  essentially  self- 
diffusive.  By  bestowing  on  the  creature  existence 
which  is  a  likeness  to  His  own  existence,  the  Crea- 
tor communicates  of  His  own,  so  to  say,  to  the  ob- 
ject of  His  charity  ;  but  by  bestowing  likewise  an  in- 
trinsic activity  proportioned  in  each  case  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  particular  nature,  he  completes  the 
similitude.  By  this  consummation  of  the  creature 
He  causes  it  to  partake,  in  its  own  proper  measure, 
of  the  diffusiveness  of  His  goodness.  There  is 
nothing  of  solitariness  in  nature.  By  the  very  con- 
stitution of  things,  being  is  impelled  to  impart  to 
being  of  its  own  perfection.  Not  only  does  the  sub- 
stantial form  bestow  upon  the  matter  a  specific  deter- 
mination, and  the  matter  sustain  the  form  in  being; 
not  only  does  accident  give  its  complement  of  per- 
fection to  substance,  and  substance  give  and  preserve 
the  being  of  accident ;  not  only  does  part  conspire 
with  part  towards  the  completeness  of  the  whole, 
and  the  whole  delight  in  the  welfare  of  each  part ; 
but  substance  generates  substance,  accident,  in  its 
way,  accident,  and  the  whole  visible  universe  is  knit 
together  in  the  solidarity  of  a  common  need  and  of 
mutual   support.     Passing   upwards,  the    orders   of 


300  E  VOL  U TION  A ND  DOGMA . 

spiritual  being,  both  those  that  are  included  in 
the  visible  creation  and  those  which  are  pure  in- 
telligences, bear  in  the  activity  of  their  will,  which 
acts  upon  all  that  is  around  it,  a  yet  nearer  resem- 
blance to  the  charity  of  the  Creator.  Assuredly, 
then,  the  causal  activity  of  finite  being  is  not 
superfluous ;  even  though  God  can,  by  His  sole 
omnipotence,  do  all  that  is  effected  by  His  crea- 
ture." ' 

Such  then,  is  the  theistic  conception  of  Evolu- 
tion ;  such  the  Catholic  idea  as  developed  and  taught 
by  the  Church's  most  eminent  saints  and  Doctors. 
It  were  easy  to  add  the  testimony  of  other  philoso- 
phers and  theologians ;  but  this  is  not  necessary.  It 
is  not  my  purpose  to  write  a  treatise  on  the  subject, 
but  merely  to  indicate  by  the  declarations  of  a  few 
accredited  witnesses,  to  show  from  the  teachings  of 
those  "whose  praise  is  in  all  the  churches,"  that 
there  is  nothing  in  Evolution,  properly  understood, 
which  is  antagonistic  either  to  revelation  or  Dogma ; 
that,  on  the  contrary,  far  from  being  opposed  to 
faith.  Evolution,  as  taught  by  St.  Augustine  and  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  is  the  most  reasonable  view,  and 
the  one  most  in  harmony  with  the  explicit  dec- 
larations of  the  Genesiac  narrative  of  creation. 
This  the  Angelic  Doctor  admits  in  so  many 
words.  God  could,  indeed,  have  created  all  things 
directly ;  He  could  have  dispensed  with  the  coopera- 
tion of  secondary  causes;  He  could  have  remained  in 
all  things  the  sole  immediate  efficient  Cause,  but  in 
His  infinite  wisdom  He  chose  to  order  otherwise. 

'  "Metaphj'sics  of  the  School,"  vol.  Ill,  part  I,  pp,  36  jind  28. 


THEIS'M  AND  EVOLUTION.  301 

Occasionalism. 

The  Evolution,  however,  of  Augustine  and 
Aquinas,  I  must  here  remark,  excludes  the  Occasion- 
alism of  Geulincx  and  Malebranche  as  much  as  it 
does  the  specific  creation  of  the  older  philosophers. 
In  the  opinion  of  the  Cartesians,  just  mentioned, 
there  are  no  second  causes  ;  God  is  the  sole  Cause  in 
the  universe.  The  operations  of  nature,  far  from 
being  the  result  of  second  causes,  as  the  Angelic 
Doctor  teaches,  are  due  "  exclusively  to  the  action 
of  God,  who  takes  occasion  of  the  due  presence  of 
what  we  should  call  .secondary  causes,  with  the  sub- 
jects of  operation,  to  produce.  Himself,  all  natural 
effects ;"  Who,  for  instance,  "  takes  an  act  of  the 
will  as  the  occasion  of  producing  a  corresponding 
movement  of  the  body,  and  a  state  of  the  body  as 
the  occasion  of  producing  a  corresponding  mental 
state."  According  to  the  doctrine  of  occasional 
causes,  **  body  and  mind  are  like  two  clocks  which  act 
together,  because  at  each  instant  they  are  adjusted 
by  God."  Not  only  is  God  the  cause  of  the  con- 
comitance of  bodily  and  mental  facts;  He  is  the 
cause  of  their  existence,  their  sequence  and  their 
coexistence  as  well.  The  efficient  causality  is  elim- 
inated entirely  from  the  scheme  of  creation  and  de- 
velopment, and  God  acts  directly  and  immediately, 
not  indirectly  and  mediately,  in  all  the  phenomena, 
and  in  all  the  countless  and  inconceivable  minutiae 
of  the    universe.'     The    refutation  of   this  opinion 


*  A  view  similar  lo,  if  not  identical  with  Occasionalism,  is 
held  by  Mr.  John  Fiske.  The  doctrine  of  secondary  causes,  as 
above  explained,  he  calls  "  the  lower,  or  Augustinian  Theism," 


302  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

has  been  anticipated  in  the  presentation  of  the 
views  of  St.  Thomas  and  St.  Augustine,  and  their 
consideration,  therefore,  need  make  no  further  claim 
on  our  attention. 

Anthropomorphism. 

But  not  only  does  the  theistic  Evolution  of  St. 
Augustine  and  the  Angelic  Doctor  exclude  special 
creations  and  Occasionalism,  it  dispels  as  completely 
all  anthropomorphic  views  of  the  Deity,  and  is  at 
the  same  time  thoroughly  opposed  to  the  doctrine 
of  constant  Divine  interference  in  the  operations  of 
nature. 

St.  Augustine  shows  how  distasteful  Anthropo- 
morphism is  to  him  when,  among  other  things,  he 
declares :  "  To  suppose  that  God  formed  man  from 
the  dust  with  bodily  hands  is  very  childish.  .  .  .  God 
neither  formed  man  with  bodily  hands  nor  did  He 
breathe  upon  him  with  throat  and  lips." 

We  know,  indeed,  that  God  created  all  things 
from  nothing,  but  we  cannot  imagine,  nay,  we 
cannot  conceive,  how  He  created.  We  know  that 
the   universe    came  into   existence   in   virtue   of  a 


as  contradistinguished  from  what  he  designates  "the  higher,  or 
Athanasian  Theism,"  which,  he  will  have  it,  knows  nothing  of 
secondary  causes  in  a  world  where  every  event  flows  directly 
from  the  eternal  First  Cause,  in  a  world  where  God  is  ever 
immanent  and  eternally  creative.  If  Mr.  Fiske  will  take  the 
trouble  to  study  more  carefully'  the  teachings  of  Sts.  Athanasius 
and  Augustine,  anent  the  Divine  administration  of  the  world,  he 
will  find  that,  however  much  these  two  great  Doctors  may 
have  differed  in  the  expression  of  their  views,  they  were,  never- 
theless, at  one  as  to  the  doctrine  of  derivative  creation,  or  crea- 
tion through  the  agency  of  secondary  causes.  For  Fiske's 
opinion  on  this  topic,  see  his  "Idea  of  God,"  chap,  vii,  and  Cos- 
mic Theism,  in  part  III  of"  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy." 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  303 

simple  Divine  fiat,  but  no  human  intellect  is 
able  to  conceive  how  matter  and  spirit  were  educed 
from  nothingness  into  actuality.  The  very  feeble- 
ness and  limitations  of  human  language  and  hu- 
man thought  compel  us,  when  speaking  of  God 
and  His  operations,  to  employ  terms  that  often 
but  faintly  adumbrate  the  magnificent  realities  of 
which  we  can  never  form  an  adequate  conception. 
We  speak  of  God  as  Creator,  as  giving  ear  to  the 
prayers  of  His  creatures,  as  being  holy,  just,  power- 
ful, omniscient,  omnipresent,  but  we  do  not  thereby 
think  of  Him  as  some  sort  of  magnified  man,  as 
skeptics  are  often  wont  to  assert.  When  we  speak 
of  the  attributes  and  perfections  of  the  Deity,  we 
must  needs  use  the  same  terms  as  when  we  speak 
of  corresponding  attributes  and  perfections  in  man. 
This,  however,  does  not  necessarily  imply  an  anthro- 
pomorphic conception  of  God,  and  still  less  does 
it,  as  is  so  often  assumed,  imply  the  alternative  of  a 
blank  and  hopeless  skepticism. 

"  God,"  as  a  scholarly  writer  truthfully  observes, 
"  contains  in  Himself  all  human  perfections,  but  not 
in  the  same  manner  as  they  exist  in  man.  In  man 
they  are  limited,  dependent,  conditioned,  imperfect, 
finite  nature.  In  God  they  are  unlimited,  independ- 
ent, absolute,  perfect,  infinite  nature.  In  man 
they  can  be  separated  one  from  the  other ;  in  God 
they  are  all  one  and  the  same,  and  we  can  distinguish 
the  Divine  attributes  after  our  human  fashion,  only 
because  their  perfect  and  absolute  unity  contains 
virtually  in  itself  an  infinite  multiplicity.  In  man 
they   are  essentially  human ;  in  God   they   are  all 


304  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Divine.  In  man  they  belong  to  the  lower  and 
created  order;  in  God,  to  a  higher  and  uncreated 
order.  In  man  any  moral  perfection  may  be  present 
or  absent  without  the  essential  nature  of  man  being 
thereby  affected  ;  in  God,  the  absence  of  any  perfec- 
tion would  thereby  rob  Him  ipso  facto  of  His  Deity. 
Whatever  the  human  attribute  can  perform,  the 
Divine  attribute  can  do  in  a  far  more  perfect  way, 
and  the  most  exalted  exhibition  of  human  perfection 
is  but  a  faint  shadow  of  the  Divine  perfection  that 
gave  it  birth.  The  most  unbounded  charity,  mercy, 
gentleness,  compassion,  in  man,  is  feeble  indeed,  and 
miserable,  compared  with  the  charity,  mercy,  gentle- 
ness, compassion  of  God.  The  Divine  perfection  is 
the  ideal  of  human  perfection,  its  model,  its  pattern, 
its  origin,  its  efficient  Cause,  the  source  from  which  it 
came,  the  end  for  which  it  was  created."  ' 

Divine    Interference. 

Theistic  Evolution,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
advocated  by  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Thomas,  ex- 
cludes also  Divine  interference,  or  constant  unneces- 
sary interventions  on  the  part  of  the  Deity,  as  effectu- 
ally as  it  does  a  low  and  narrow  Anthropomorphism. 
Both  these  illustrious  Doctors  declare  explicitly, 
that  "  in  the  institution  of  nature  we  do  not  look  for 
miracles,  but  for  the  laws  of  nature."  ' 


*  The  Month,  Sept.,  1882,  p.  20. 

*Cf.  "Gen.  ad  Lit.,"  lib.  II,  cap.  i,  of  St.  Augustine  and 
"Sum."  I,  Lxvii,  4  ad  3'"  of  St.  Thomas.  The  Angelic  Doctor's 
words  are:  "In  prima  autem  institutione  naturse  non  qujeritur 
miraculum,  sed  quid  natura  rerum  habeat."    Suarez  expresses 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  305 

Only  the  crudest  conception  of  derivative  creation 
would  demand  that  the  theist  should  necessarily,  if 
consistent,  have  recourse  to  continued  creative  fiats 
to  explain  the  multifold  phenomena  connected  with 
inorganic  or  organic  Evolution.  For,  as  already  ex- 
plained, derivation  or  secondary  creation  is  not,  prop- 
erly speaking,  a  supernatural  act.  It  is  merely  the 
indirect  action  of  Deity  by  and  through  natural 
causes.  The  action  of  God  in  the  order  of  nature  is 
concurrent  and  overruling,  indeed,  but  is  not 
miraculous  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  "miracu- 
lous" is  ordinarily  understood.  He  operates  by  and 
through  the  laws  which  He  instituted  in  the  be- 
ginning, and  which  are  still  maintained  by  His  Provi- 
dence. Neither  the  doctrine  of  the  Angel  of  the 
Schools  nor  that  of  the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  requires  the 
perpetual  manifestation  of  miraculous  powers,  inter- 
ventions or  catastrophes.  They  do  not  necessitate 
the  interference  with,  or  the  dispensation  from,  the 
laws  of  nature,  but  admit  and  defend  their  existence 
and  their  continuous  and  regular  and  natural  action. 
Only  a  misunderstanding  of  terms,  only  a  gross  mis- 
apprehension of  the  meaning  of  the  word  "creation," 
only, in  fine,  the  "  unconscious  Anthropomorphisms" 
of  the  Agnostic  and  the  Monist,  would  lead  one  to 
find  anything  irreconcilable  between  the  legitimate 
inductions  of  science  and  the  certain  and  explicit 
declarations  of  Dogma. 

himself  to  the  same  effect  when  he  tells  us,  in  his  tractate,  "De 
Angelis,"  lib.  I,  no.  8,  that  we  must  not  have  recourse  to  the 
First  Cause  when  the  effects  observed  can  be  explained  by  the 
operations  of  secondary  causes.  "  Non  est  ad  Primam  Causam 
recurrendam  cum  possunt  effectus  ad  causas  secundas  reduci." 

E, — 20 


306  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Science  and    Creation. 

From  what  has  already  been  learned,  it  is  mani- 
fest that  physical  science  is  utterly  incompetent  to 
pronounce  on  primaiy  or  absolute  creation.  This, 
being  by  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  above  and  be- 
yond observation  and  experiment,  it  is,  for  the  same 
reason,  necessarily  above  and  beyond  the  sphere 
of  science  or  Evolution.  The  Rev.  Baden  Powell 
clearly  expresses  this  idea  in  his  "  Philosophy  of  Cre- 
ation," when  he  affirms  that  "  science  demonstrates 
incessant  past  changes,  and  dimly  points  to  yet  earlier 
links  in  a  more  vast  series  of  development  of  material 
existence  ;  but  the  idea  of  a  beginning,  or  of  creation, 
in  the  sense  of  the  original  operation  of  the  Divine 
volition  to  constitute  nature  and  matter,  is  beyond 
the  province  of  physical  philosophy."  ' 

Again,  belief  in  derivative  creation  is  secure  from 
attack,  on  the  part  of  natural  science,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  does  not  repose  on  physical  phenom- 
ena at  all,  but  on  psychical  reasons,  or  on  our  pri- 
mary intuitions.  Modern  scientists  are  continually 
confounding  primary  with  secondary  creation,  and 
speaking  of  the  latter  as  if  it  were  absolute  creation, 
or  as  if  it  implied  special  supernatural  action.  This 
confusion  of  terms  is  at  the  bottom  of  many  of  the 
utterances  of  Darwin  and  Huxley,  and  is  the  cause 
of  numerous  erroneous  views  which  they  ascribe 
to  their  opponents.  Thus,  Darwin  asks  those  who 
are  not  prepared  to  assent  to  his  evolutionary  no- 
tions, if   "they  really  believe  that  at  innumerable 

^  Essay  III,  sec.  iv. 


THEISM  AND  E  VOL UTION.  307 

periods  in  the  earth's  history,  certain  elemental  atoms 
have  been  commanded  suddenly  to  flash  into  living 
tissues?"  '  And  Huxley  ridicules  the  notion  that  **  a 
rhinoceros  tichorhinus  suddenly  started  from  the 
ground  like  Milton's  lion,  'pawing  to  get  free  its 
hinder  parts,'  "  '^  and  facetiously  speaks  of  the  im- 
probability of  "  the  sudden  concurrence  of  half-a-ton 
of  inorganic  molecules  into  a  live  rhinoceros." 

A  grave  objection,  quotha !  As  if  a  belief  in 
creation  necessarily  connoted  the  grotesque  assump- 
tions which  he  attributes  to  those  who  are  not  of  his 
mind.  Huxley  and  Darwin  set  up  poor,  impotent 
dummies,  and  forthwith  proceed  to  knock  them 
down,  and  then  imagine  they  have  proven  the 
views  of  their  adversaries  to  be  untenable,  if  not 
absurd.  A  reference  to  what  has  already  been  said 
respecting  absolute  and  derivative  creation,  and  a 
recollection  that  creation  by  and  through  second- 
ary causes  is  not  a  supernatural,  but  a  natural  act, 
will  show  how  much  ignorance  of  the  elench  there 
is  in  the  difficulty  suggested  by  the  two  naturalists 
just  named. 

Darwin's    Objection. 

Once  more,  Darwin  speaks  of  a  man  building  a 
house  of  certain  stones  found  at  the  base  of  a  preci- 
pice, and  selecting  those  which,  from  their  shape, 
happened  to  be  most  suitable.  And  in  referring 
to  this  matter  he  writes :  "The  shape  of  the  frag- 
ments of  stone  at  the  base  of  our  precipice  may  be 

'  '*  The  Origin  of  Species,"  vol.  II,  p.  297. 
2 «  Life  of  Darwin,"  vol.  I,  p.  548. 


808  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

called  accidental,  but  this  is  not  strictly  correct,  for 
the  shape  of  each  depends  on  a  long  sequence  of 
events,  all  obeying  natural  laws,  on  the  nature  of  the 
rock,  on  the  lines  of  stratification  or  cleavage,  on  the 
form  of  the  mountain,  which  depends  upon  its  up- 
heaval and  subsequent  denudation,  and  lastly  on  the 
storm  and  earthquake  which  threw  down  the  frag- 
ments. But  in  regard  to  the  use  to  which  the  frag- 
ments may  be  put,  their  shape  may  strictly  be  said 
to  be  accidental.  And  here  we  are  led  to  face  a 
great  difficulty,  in  alluding  to  which  I  am  aware  that 
I  am  traveling  beyond  my  proper  province. 

"An  omniscient  Creator  must  have  foreseen  every 
consequence  which  results  from  the  laws  imposed  by 
Him  ;  but  can  it  be  reasonably  maintained  that  the 
Creator  intentionally  ordered,  if  we  use  the  words  in 
any  ordinary  sense,  that .  certain  fragments  of  rock 
should  assume  certain  shapes  so  that  the  builder 
might  erect  his  edifice?'" 

The  difficulty  here  raised  is  one  of  frequent  oc- 
currence in  the  writings  of  modern  scientists.  It  re- 
poses entirely  on  the  crude  and  erroneous  notions 
which  they  entertain  respecting  the  nature  and  attri- 
butes of  the  Deity,  and  has  its  origin  in  that  low  and 
restricted  Anthropomorphism,  against  which  they  are 
wont  to  inveigh  so  strongly,  but  into  which  they  are 
continually  lapsing,  notwithstanding  all  their  assever- 
ations and  protestations  to  the  contrary.  The  objec- 
tion, although  urged  in  the  name  of  natural  and 
physical  science,  is  in  reality  metaphysical  in  char- 
acter and  should  be  so  treated.     Those  who    urge 

^"Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication,"  vol.  II,  p.  432. 


1 


THEISM  AND  E  VOL UTION.  309 

the  objection  seem  to  think,  that  in  the  boundless 
profusion  and  multitudinous  forms  of  inorganic  and 
organic  nature,  in  the  myriad  worlds  and  systems 
of  worlds  which  people  the  illimitable  realms  of 
space,  there  is  more  than  God  can  provide  for  or 
superintend.  They  forget  that  He,  by  His  very 
nature,  is  omniscient  and  omnipotent  and  omnipres- 
ent; that  for  Him  there  is  neither  past  nor  future, 
but  that  all  is  present  and  bare  before  His  eyes ; 
that  far  from-  being  conditioned  or  limited  in  His 
actions,  He  is  absolutely  independent  and  free  from 
all  limitations ;  that  He  is  infinite  in  all  His  perfec- 
tions and  can  attend  to  a  thousand  million  systems 
of  worlds,  and  to  each  according  to  its  proper  needs, 
as  well  as  to  a  single  crystal  or  a  solitary  flower  ; 
and  that  He  can  do  this  during  countless  aeons  of 
time  as  easily  as  He  can  for  a  single  moment.  We 
have  here,  in  a  different  guise,  the  old  difficulty  of 
time  and  space  in  their  relations  to  God  and  His 
Divine  operations.  It  is  only  necessary  to  form  a 
proper,  if  not  an  adequate  conception,  of  God  and 
His  attributes,  to  refer  to  the  first  principles  of 
psychology,  in  order  to  realize  how  puerile  is  the 
objection,  and  what  crass  ignorance  it  betrays  of 
the  fundamental  elements  of  metaphysics  and  the- 
ology on  the  part  of  the  objector. 

Limitations  of  Specialists. 

In  Darwm's  case,  one  is  not  surprised  that  he 
should,  in  good  faith,  urge  the  objection  included  in 
the  quotation  just  made  from  him,  because  he  in- 
forms us  himself  that  he  was  mentally  disqualified 


310  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

for  the  discussion  of  abstract  or  metaphysical  ques- 
tions. "  My  power,"  he  writes  in  his  autobiography, 
"to  follow  a  long  and  purely  abstract  train  of 
thought,  is  very  limited ;  and  therefore  I  could  never 
have  succeeded  with  metaphysics  or  mathematics." 
But  aside  from  his  incompetence  as  a  metaphysician, 
the  very  doctrine  he  championed  so  lustily  seemed 
to  render  him  nebulous  and  skeptical  even  about 
primary  intuitions.  Having  occasion  to  give  an 
opinion  on  the  "  Creed  of  Science,"  he  wrote :  "  The 
horrid  doubt  always  arises  whether  the  convictions 
of  man's  mind,  which  has  been  developed  from  the 
mind  of  the  lower  animals,  are  of  any  value,  or  at  all 
trustworthy.  Would  anyone  trust  in  the  convictions 
of  a  monkey's  mind,  if  there  are  any  convictions  in 
such  a  mind  ?"  ' 

One  is  not  surprised,  I  repeat,  to  find  metaphys- 
ical and  theological  errors  in  Darwin's  works,  for,  in 
addition  to  his  acknowledged  incapacity  in  abstract 
subjects,  his  mind  was  so  preoccupied  with  biology 
in  its  bearings  on  Evolution,  that  he  was  practically 
indifferent  to,  if  not  oblivious  of,  everything  outside 
his  immediate  sphere  of  research.  He  is,  indeed,  a 
striking  illustration  of  the  truth  of  Cardinal  New- 
man's observations  when  he  declares,  that  "Any  one 
study,  of  whatever  kind,  exclusively  pursued,  dead- 
ens in  the  mind  the  interest,  nay,  the  perception,  of 
any  other.  Thus,  Cicero  says,  Plato  and  Demos- 
thenes, Aristotle  and  Isocrates,  might  have  respect- 
ively excelled  in  each  other's  province,  but  that  each 
was  absorbed  in  his  own.     Specimens  of  this  pecul- 

* "  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,"  vol.  I,  p.  285. 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  311 

iarity  occur  every  day.  You  can  hardly  persuade 
some  men  to  talk  about  anything  but  their  own  pur- 
suits ;  they  refer  the  whole  world  to  their  own  cen- 
ter, and  measure  all  matters  by  their  own  rule,  like 
the  fisherman  in  the  drama,  whose  eulogy  on  his 
deceased  lord  was,  'he  was  so  fond  of  fish.'  "  ' 

But  the  observations  of  the  learned  cardinal  are 
not  more  applicable  to  Darwin  than  to  a  host  of 
contemporary  scientists,  who  fancy  there  is  an  irrec- 
oncilable conflict  between  science  on  the  one  hand, 
and  religion  on  the  other.  They  fail  to  see  that  the 
conflict,  so  far  as  it  exists,  is  due  either  to  bias  or 
ignorance,  or  to  the  fact  that  the  very  nature  of 
their  studies  has  imposed  limitations  on  them,  which 
utterly  unfit  them  for  pronouncing  an  opinion  on 
the  subjects  which  they  are  often  in  such  haste  to 
discuss. 

In  one  of  his  thoughtful  essays,*  the  Rev.  James 
Martineau  alludes  to  the  injury  which  is  done  to 
sound  philosophy  by  the  undue  cultivation  of  any 
one  branch  of  knowledge.  "  Nothing  is  more  com- 
mon," he  avers,  "  than  to  see  maxims,  which  are 
unexceptionable    as  the  assumptions  of    particular 


'"Lectures  on  University  Subjects,"  p.  322.  Nearh*  forty 
years  ago,  in  a  lecture  before  the  Royal  Institution  of  Great 
Britain,  the  noted  English  writer,  H.  T.  Buckle,  adverting  to  this 
topic,  declared  that  "  an  exclusive  employment  of  the  inductive 
philosophy  was  contracting  the  minds  of  physical  inquirers,  and 
gradually  shutting  out  speculations  respecting  causes  and  en- 
tities ;  limiting  the  student  to  questions  of  distribution,  and  for- 
bidding him  questions  of  origin ;  making  everything  hang  oa 
two  sets  of  laws,  namely,  those  of  coexistence  and  of  sequence; 
and  declaring  beforehand  how  far  future  knowledge  can  lead 
us."     See  vol.  I,  of  "  Miscellaneous  and  Posthumous  Works." 

'^"A  Plea  for  Philosophical  Studies." 


312  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

sciences,  coerced  into  the  service  of  a  universal  philos- 
ophy, and  so  turned  into  instruments  of  mischief  and 
distortion.  That '  we  can  know  but  phenomena ; '  that 
'  causation  is  simply  constant  priority  ; '  that '  men  are 
governed  invariably  by  their  interests ; '  are  examples 
of  rules  allowable  as  dominant  hypotheses  in  physics 
or  political  economy,  but  exercising  a  desolating  tyr- 
anny when  thrust  onto  the  throne  of  universal  em- 
pire. He  who  seizes  upon  these  and  similar  maxims 
and  carries  them  in  triumph  on  his  banner,  may 
boast  of  his  escape  from  the  uncertainties  of  meta- 
physics, but  is  himself,  all  the  while,  the  unconscious 
victim  of  their  very  vulgarest  deception." 

Evolution  and  Catholic  Teaching. 

From  the  foregoing  pages,  then,  it  is  clear  that 
far  from  being  opposed  to  faith,  theistic  Evolution  is, 
on  the  contrary,  supported  both  by  the  declarations 
of  Genesis  and  by  the  most  venerable  philosophical 
and  theological  authorities  of  the  Church.  I  have 
mentioned  specially  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Thomas, 
because  of  their  exalted  position  as  saints  and  Doc- 
tors, but  it  were  an  easy  matter  to  adduce  the  testi- 
mony of  others  scarcely  less  renowned  for  their 
philosophical  acumen  and  for  their  proved  and  un- 
questioned  orthodoxy ;  but  this  is  unnecessary.'  Of 
course  no  one  would  think  of  maintaining  that  any 
of  the  Fathers  or  Doctors  of  the  Church  taught 
Evolution  in  the   sense  in  which  it  is  now  under- 


let., in  this  connection,  chap,  xii,  of  the  "Genesis  of 
Species;"  and  chap,  xiv,  of  "Lessons  from  Nature,"  by  St. 
George  Mivart,  where  the  subject.  Theology  and  Evolution,  is 
very  cleverly  treated. 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  313 

stood.  They  did  not  do  this  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  subject  had  not  even  been  broached  in  its 
present  form,  and  because  its  formulation  as  a  theory, 
under  its  present  aspect,  was  impossible  before  men 
of  science  had  in  their  possession  the  accumulated 
results  of  the  observation  and  research  of  these  lat- 
ter times.  But  they  did  all  that  was  necessary  fully 
to  justify  my  present  contention  ;  they  laid  down 
principles  which  are  perfectly  compatible  with  the- 
istic  Evolution.  They  asserted,  in  the  most  posi- 
tive and  explicit  manner,  the  doctrine  of  derivative 
creation  as  against  the  theory  of  a  perpetual  direct 
creation  of  organisms,  and  turned  the  weight  of 
their  great  authority  in  favor  of  the  doctrine,  that 
God  administers  the  material  universe  by  natural 
laws,  and  not  by  constant  miraculous  interventions. 
As  far  as  the  present  argument  is  concerned,  this 
distinct  enunciation  of  principles  makes  for  my 
thesis  quite  as  much  as  would  the  promulgation  of 
a  more  detailed  theory  of  Evolution. 

The   Scholastic  Doctrine  of  Species. 

It  may,  however,  be  objected,  that  the  authorities 
so  far  quoted  favor  development  only  in  a  vague 
or  general  way ;  that  the  Fathers  and  Scholastics 
distinctly  maintained  certain  views  which  are  abso- 
lutely incompatible  with  Evolution  as  now  under- 
stood. It  is  said,  for  instance,  that  the  scholastic 
doctrine  of  species,  to  which  all  the  Schoolmen  are 
irrevocably  committed,  completely  negatives  the 
view    that    their   principles    are    compatible    with 


314  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

organic  development.  We  are  told  that  one  of  the 
cardinal  doctrines  of  the  School  is  the  immutability 
of  species ;  that  species  are  but  realizations  of  the 
archetypes,  the  "  grand  ideas,"  which  have  existed 
from  all  eternity  in  the  mind  of  the  Creator ;  that 
to  affirm  the  immutability  of  species  would  be  tan- 
tamount to  asserting  a  change  in  the  Divine  proto- 
types, or  to  predicating  a  mutation  in  the  Divine 
Essence  itself. 

In  answer  to  this  objection  I  shall  confine  myself 
to  the  teachings  of  the  Angelic  Doctor  alone,  as  I 
am  perfectly  willing  to  rest  my  case  for  Evolution 
on  his  certain  teachings  respecting  the  nature  of 
species. 

It  is  necessary  to  premise  here,  that  in  the  induc- 
tive sciences,  St.  Thomas,  like  his  illustrious  master, 
St.  Augustine,  teaches  that  disputed  points  are  not 
to  be  settled  by  a  priori  reasoning,  but  rather  by 
observation  and  experiment.  •  No  one,  therefore, 
who  is  even  slightly  acquainted  with  the  mind  of 
the  Angelic  Doctor,  and  who  duly  appreciates  his 
penetrating  and  comprehensive  genius,  would  for  a 
moment  credit  him  with  binding  his  disciples  and 
successors  to  metaphysical  formulae,  in  matters 
of  experimental  science,  and  thus  obliging  them  to 
reject  the  results  of  experiment  and  observation 
when  they  might  happen  to  contravene  the  dicta  or 
assumptions  of  metaphysics.  Such  an  imputation 
would  not  be  borne  out  by  his  teaching  and  would 
be  as  unjust  as  it  would  be  erroneous. 

To  remove  ambiguity  and  clear  away  difficulties, 
it  may  be  observed  that  the  word  "  species  "  may  be 


THEISM  AND  B  VOL  UTION.  31 5 

envisaged  under  three  different  aspects,  to  wit :  the 
metaphysical,  the  logical,  and  the  physiological  or 
real.  As  to  the  metaphysical  and  logical  aspects, 
both  the  Angelic  Doctor  and  the  School  gener- 
ally, are  one  in  attributing  to  species  an  absolute 
fixity.' 

With  metaphysical  and  logical  species,  however, 
we  are  not  at  present  concerned.  I  am  quite  willing 
to  leave  these  to  the  metaphysician  to  treat  them 
as  he  lists.  The  question  now  at  issue  regards  only 
physiological  species.  Is  the  species  of  which  the 
biologist  speaks  variable,  or  does  it  belong  to  the 
category  of  immutable  metaphysical  species  ?  This 
is  a  question  of  science  and  not  of  metaphysics.  If 
it  can  be  proven  by  the  sciences  of  observation  and 
experiment,  that  species  are  permanent  and  in- 
variable, then  the  real  or  physiological  species  of 
the  naturalist,  in  so  far  as  they  are  immutable,  at 
once  enter  into  the  category  of  the  metaphysical 
species  of  the  School.  If,  on  the  contrary,  science 
can  demonstrate  that  species  are  variable,  then 
the  fancied  identity  of  physiological  and  meta- 
physical species  immediately  disappears.  The  de- 
termination, however,  whether  living  types,  plant 
or  animal,  are  variable  or  permanent ;  whether 
physiological  species  shall  be  classed  in  the  same 
category  as   immutable    metaphysical  species,  is,  I 


'  In  his  "  Summa,"  St.  Thomas  thus  defines  logical  species  : 
"  Considerandum  est  quod  illud  secundum  quod  sortitur  aliquid 
speciem  oportet  esse  fixum  et  stans  et  quasi  indivisibile.  .  .  . 
Et  ideo  omnis  forma  quje  substantialiter  participatur  in  subjecto, 
caret  intensione  et  remissione."  "  Summa,"  pars  I,  qusest.  52, 
art.  I. 


316  EVOLU TION  A ND  D OGMA . 

repeat,  a  matter  not  of  a  priori  reasoning,  but 
wholly  and  solely  one  of  observation  and  experi- 
ment. 

In  his  "  Summa,"  the  Angelic  Doctor  admits 
without  hesitation  the  possibility  of  a  new  species, 
for  he  tells  us  that :  "  New  species,  if  they  make  their 
appearance,  preexisted  in  certain  active  virtues,  as 
animals  are  produced  from  carrion  under  the  influ- 
ence communicated  in  the  beginning  to  the  stars 
and  the  elements." ' 

More  than  this,  he  distinctly  admits  the  muta- 
bility of  species.  To  the  objection  that  species 
must  be  immutable  because  they  correspond  with 
archetypes  in  the  Divine  intelligence,  that  they 
must  be  immutable  because  their  forms  are  essen- 
tially immutable,  he  replies,  that  "  immutability  is 
proper  to  God  only,"  and  that  "  forms  are  subject 
to  the  variations  of  the  reality."  * 

Again,  it  is  erroneously  supposed  that  St.  Thomas 
always  attaches  to  the  terms  genus  and  species,  the 
same  meaning  as  is  given  them  by  modern  natural- 
ists. This  is  a  grave  misapprehension.  It  will  suf- 
fice to  adduce  a  single  instance  in  disproof  of  this 
notion.  For  example,  the  Angelic  Doctor  places 
man  and  animal  in  the  same  genus.  But  if,  in  the 
mind  of  St.  Thomas,  the  word  genus  were  in  this 


'  "  Species  etiam  novae,  si  quae  apparent,  praeextiterunt  in 
quibusdam  activis  virtutibus  ;  sicut  et  animalia  ex  putrefactione 
generata  producuntur  ex  virtutibus  stellarum  et  elementorum, 
quas  a  principio  acceperunt;  etiamsi  novse  species  talium  ani- 
malium  producuntur."    "  Summa,"  pars  I,  quaest.  73,  art.  i  ad  3. 

'"  Subjiciuntur  tamen  variation!  in  quantum  subjectum 
secundum  eas  variatur."     "Summa,"  pars  I,  quaest.  9,  art.  2  et  3. 


THEISM  A ND  EVOLU TION.  31 7 

instance  to  be  understood  in  its  modern  sense,  it 
would,  as  Pere  Leroy  puts  it,  be  tantamount  to  ad- 
mitting the  "  principle  of  materialism."'  Obviously, 
therefore,  the  term  genus  is  to  be  understood  in  a 
much  more  comprehensive  sense.  For  a  similar 
reason,  species,  the  immediate  subdivision  of  genus, 
must  likewise  have  a  much  wider  signification  than 
it  has  in  a  strict  technical  sense.  If  we  desire  to 
have  a  measure  of  the  relative  amplitude  of  species 
as  compared  with  genus,  in  the  passage  just  quoted, 
in  which  genus  is  made  to  embrace  man  and  animal, 
we  must,  as  Pere  Leroy  pertinently  remarks,  make 
species  correspond  to  what  naturalists  now  denomi- 
nate a  kingdom.  Thus  understood,  species,  in  the 
instance  referred  to,  would  be  immutable,  but  not 
otherwise. 

It  is  a  mistake,  then,  to  suppose  that  the  mean- 
ing of  the  term  species,  in  its  physiological  sense, 
was  fixed  by  the  Angelic  Doctor.  Neither  did  it 
receive  the  signification  afterwards  ascribed  to  it 
from  any  of  the  other  Schoolmen  or  mediaeval  the- 
ologians. Nor  does  such  a  meaning  find  any  war- 
rant in  the  teachings  of  the  Fathers  or  in  Scripture. 
Whence,  then,  the  origin  of  the  word  in  the  sense 
so  long  attributed  to  it  by  special  creationists  ?  This 
is  a  question  deserving  of  consideration,  for  an  an- 
swer to  it,  if  it  does  not  remove  wholly  many  diffi- 
culties, will  at  least  clear  the  field  for  intelligent 
discussion. 


'  For  an  interesting  discussion  of  Thomastic  teaching  re- 
specting the  nature  of  species,  see  chap,  iii  of  Pere  Leroy's 
"  L'fivolution  Restreinte  aux  Especes  Organiques." 


318  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

Milton  and  Ray. 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  it  was  a  poet  who  fas- 
tened on  science  the  signification  which  the  word 
"species"  has  so  long  borne.  Prior  to  Milton's  time 
the  meaning  of  the  term,  as  employed  by  naturalists, 
was  vague  and  changeable  in  the  extreme.  Not  so, 
however,  after  the  appearance  of  "  Paradise  Lost." 
At  once  the  account  of  creation,  as  given  in  this  im- 
mortal poem,  began  to  be  regarded  as  "a  sort  of 
inspired  gloss  on  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis,"  and 
the  botanist  Ray,  a  younger  contemporary  of  Milton, 
had,  accordingly,  no  difficulty  in  giving  to  the  word 
"species"  a  meaning  which  became  as  definite  in 
natural  history,  as  it  had  long  before  been  in  logic 
and  metaphysics.  The  work  of  Milton  and  Ray  was 
complete.  What  naturalists  from  the  time  of  Aris- 
totle had  been  unable  to  do,  was  effected  in  less  than 
a  generation  by  a  poet  and  a  botanist.  And  so  uni- 
versally was  their  meaning  of  the  word  accepted, 
that  it  persisted  in  natural  history  usage,  and  almost 
without  any  objections  being  raised  against  it,  for 
full  two  hundred  years.  It  was  adopted  by  Linnaeus 
and  given  wide-spread  currency  in  the  numerous 
works  of  the  illustrious  Swede.  It  was  accepted  by 
the  great  Cuvierand  his  school,  and  thus  a  definition 
of  a  single  word,  the  meaning  of  which  hinged  on  a 
well-known  episode  in  a  celebrated  poem,  served  for 
two  centuries  to  give  permanency  to  a  doctrine  which, 
notwithstanding  the  progress  Evolution  has  made, 
still  has  its  supporters  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
Species  were   assumed  to  be  fixed  and   invariable, 


THEISM  AND  EVOLUTION.  319 

because  the  definition  of  the  term,  not  the  facts 
of  nature,  demanded  it.  Logical  and  metaphysical 
species  were  confounded  with  physiological,  or  real 
species.  For  this  reason,  as  is  apparent,  the  founda- 
tion of  the  rival  theory  of  Evolution,  special  crea- 
tion, rests  on  an  assumption ;  an  assumption  which, 
in  turn,  is  based  on  a  misconception  of  terms,  on 
what,  in  the  last  resort,  is  a  verbal  fallacy  pure 
and  simple.  Indeed,  the  history  of  the  word  "  spe- 
cies  "  is  but  another  of  the  countless  illustrations  of 
the  sage  observation  of  Coleridge,  that  "  errors  in 
nomenclature  are  apt  to  avenge  themselves  by  gen- 
erating errors  of  idea;  "  errors  which,  in  turn,  gener- 
ate other  errors  and  retard  progress  in  a  way  that 
cannot  be  estimated. 

The  scholastic  teaching  respecting  species  does 
not,  then,  as  is  so  often  erroneously  imagined,  com- 
mit us  to  the  doctrine  of  the  immutability  of  species. 
Far  from  it.  The  question  of  the  mutability  or  per- 
manence of  physiological  species,  the  question  of 
organic  Evolution,  therefore,  is,  as  just  stated,  one  to 
be  settled  by  empirical  science,  by  observation  and 
experiment,  and  not  by  metaphysics. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE. 
Spontaneous   Generation. 

OUR  next  inquiry  is  concerning  the  teachings  of 
the  Fathers  and  the  Schoolmen  in  respect  of 
the  origin  and  nature  of  life,  and  what  views  one 
may,  consistently  with  revealed  truth  and  Catholic 
Dogma,  entertain  regarding  this  all-important  topic. 
These  are  questions,  as  is  well  known,  in  which  evo- 
lutionists of  all  classes,  monistic,  agnostic,  and 
theistic,  are  specially  interested,  and  questions,  con- 
sequently, which  cannot  be  passed  over  in  silence. 

The  lower  forms  of  life,  as  we  learned  in  the 
beginning  of  this  work,  were  supposed  by  Greek  and 
mediaeval  philosophers  to  have  originated  sponta- 
neously from  the  earth,  or  from  putrefying  organic 
matter.  From  the  time  of  Aristotle  to  that  of  Redi, 
the  doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation  was  accepted 
without  question,  and  it  is  scarcely  yet  a  generation 
since  the  brilliant  experiments  of  Pasteur  drove  abi- 
ogenesis  from  its  last  stronghold. 

For  over  two  thousand  years  the  most  extrava- 
gant notions  were  prevalent  regarding  certain  of  the 
smaller  animals.  Virgil,  in  his  famous  episode  of 
Aristaeus,  tells  us  of  the  memorable  discovery  of  the 
old  Arcadian  for  the  production  of  bees  from  the 
tainted  gore  of  slain  bullocks.     But  this  is  but  an  echo 

(330) 


ORIGIN  AND  NA  TURE  OF  LIFE  321 

of  what  was  universally  believed  and  taught.  Not 
only  was  it  thought  that  putrefying  flesh  gave  rise 
to  insects,  and  other  minute  animals,  but  it  was  the 
current  opinion  that  different  kinds  of  carrion  gen- 
erated diverse  forms  of  life.  Thus,  as  bees  were 
produced  from  decomposing  beef,  so  beetles  were  gen- 
erated from  horseflesh,  grass-hoppers  from  mules, 
scorpions  from  crabs,  and  toads  from  ducks.  Diodo- 
rus  Siculus  speaks  of  multitudes  of  animals  devel- 
oped from  the  sun-warmed  slime  of  the  Nile  valley. 
Plutarch  assures  us  that  the  soil  of  Egypt  spontane- 
ously generates  rats,  and  Pliny  is  ready  to  confirm  the 
statement  by  an  example  of  a  rat,  half  metamorphosed, 
found  in  the  Thebaid,  of  which  the  anterior  half  was 
that  of  a  fully  developed  rodent,  while  the  posterior 
half  was  entirely  of  stone !  The  Fathers  and  the 
Schoolmen,  as  we  have  seen,  made  no  hesitation  in 
accepting  the  doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation. 
But  while  ready  to  admit  abiogenesis  as  a  fact,  they 
gave  it  a  different  interpretation  from  what  it  had  re- 
ceived from  the  philosophers  and  naturalists  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  According  to  Epicurus :  "  The  earth  is 
the  mother  of  all  living  things,  and  from  this  simple 
origin  not  even  man  is  excepted."  Brute  matter,  said 
the  Epicureans — as  Haeckel  and  his  school  now  pro- 
claim— generates  of  its  own  power  both  vegetable  and 
animal  life  ;  that  is,  non-living  gives  rise  to  living  mat- 
ter. But  Christian  philosophy,  contrariwise,  teaches 
that  it  is  impossible  for  inorganic  to  produce  organic 
matter  motu propria,  or  by  any  natural  inherent  powers 
it  may  possess.  "The  waters,  "  declares  St.  Basil, 
in  speaking  of  the  work  of  creation,  "  were  gifted 


322  VOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

with  productive  power,  but  this  power  was  com- 
municated to  them  by  God."  "  From  slime  and 
muddy  places,  frogs,  flies  and  gnats  came  into  being," 
he  was  willing  to  admit,  "but  this  was  in  virtue  of  a 
certain  germinative  force  conferred  on  matter  by  the 
Author  of  nature."  "Certain  very  small  animals 
may  not  have  been  created  on  the  fifth  and  sixth 
days,"  opines  St.  Augustine,  "  but  may  have  orig- 
inated later  from  putrefying  matter,"  but  still,  even 
in  this  case,  God  it  is  who  is  their  Creator. 

Spontaneous  generation,  therefore,  was  never  a 
stumbling  block  either  to  the  Fathers  or  Scholastics, 
because  the  Creative  act  was  always  acknowledged, 
and  because  God  was  ever  recognized  as  the  Author, 
at  least  through  second  agents,  of  the  divers  forms  of 
life  which  were  supposed  to  originate  from  inorganized 
matter.  Whether  He  created  all  things  absolutely 
and  directly,  or  mediately  and  indirectly,  it  mattered 
not,  so  long  as  it  was  understood  that  nothing  could 
exist  without  His  will  and  cooperation.  Whether, 
then,  the  germ  of  life  was  specially  created  for  each 
individual  creature,  or  whether  matter  was  endowed 
with  the  power  of  evolving  what  we  call  life,  by  the 
proper  collocation  of  the  atoms  and  molecules  of 
which  matter  is  constituted,  was,  from  their  point  of 
view,  immaterial,  so  far  as  dogma  was  concerned. 
The  doctrine  of  spontaneous  generation  might  be  an 
error,  scientifically,  but,  even  if  so,  there  was  nothing 
in  it  contrary  to  the  truths  of  revelation.  It  was 
always  and  fully  recognized  that  God  was  the  sole 
and  absolute  Creator  of  matter,  and  that  He,  by  the 
action  of  powers   conferred   on  matter,  by  certain 


ORIGIN  AND  NA  TURE  OF  LIFE.  323 

seminal  forces,  as  the  Scholastics  taught,  disposed 
matter  for  the  assumption  of  all  the  multitudinous 
forms  into  which  it  subsequently  developed. 

The  Nature  of  Life. 

Respecting  the  real  nature,  not  the  origin,  of 
life,  there  have,  indeed,  been  many  and  diverse  opin- 
ions. Even  now  it  is  almost  as  much  of  an  enigma 
as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Aristotle,  and  we  are  at  pres- 
ent, apparently,  no  better  qualified  to  give  a  true 
definition  of  life  than  was  the  great  Stagirite,  twenty- 
five  centuries  ago.  Living  beings  can,  indeed,  be 
distinguished  from  non-living  beings  by  their  struc- 
ture, mode  of  genesis,  and  development,  but  this 
does  not  help  us  toward  a  clear  and  precise  defini- 
tion of  Hfe. 

According  to  the  philosophers  of  antiquity  there 
was  a  certain  independent  entity,  or  vital  principle, 
which,  uniting  with  the  body,  gives  life,  and,  separat- 
ing from  it,  causes  death.  Plato  and  Aristotle,  as  is 
well  known,  admitted  the  existence  of  three  souls,  or 
animating  spirits,  the  vegetative  for  plants,  the  vege- 
tative and  sensitive  for  animals ;  and  for  man,  an  in- 
telligent and  reasoning  spirit  in  addition  to  those 
possessed  by  plants  and  animals. 

Paracelsus  and  Van  Helmont  spoke  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  life  under  the  name  of  archceus,  and  at- 
tempted to  explain  vital  functions  by  chemical 
agencies.  Others,  still,  "  made  the  chyle  effervesce  in 
the  heart,  under  the  influence  of  salt  and  sulphur, 
which  took  fire  together  and  produced  the  vital 
flame!" 


324  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Bichat  defines  life  as  "  the  sum  total  of  the  func- 
tions which  resist  death;"  Herbert  Spencer  makes 
it  "  the  continuous  adjustment  of  internal  relations 
to  external  relations,"  while  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
tells  us,  that  "  Life  is  the  state  of  an  organized  being 
in  which  it  maintains,  or  is  capable  of  maintaining, 
its  structural  integrity,  by  the  constant  interchange 
of  elements  with  the  surrounding  media."' 

Such  definitions,  however,  are  almost  as  vague 
and  unsatisfactory  as  the  notions  implied  in  the 
"  spirits  "  of  Aristotle  and  Plato,  and  in  the  archseus 
of  Van  Helmont  and  Paracelsus.  They  afford  us  no 
clearer  conception  of  what  life  really  is  in  itself,  of 
what  it  is  that  constitutes  the  essential  difference 
between  living  and  non-living  matter,  than  we  may 
derive  from  the  idea  of  Hippocrates,  who  regarded 
"  unintelligent  nature  as  the  mysterious  agent  in  the 
vital  processes." 

But  whatever  views  we  may  entertain  respecting 
the  actual  nature  of  life  ;  whether  we  regard  it  as  a 
force  entirely  different  in  kind  from  the  purely  phys- 
ical forces,  or  look  upon  it  as  a  special  coordination 
and  integration  of  physical  forces,  acting  in  some 
mysterious  way  on  inanimate  matter,  and  in  such 
wise  as  to  cause  it  to  exhibit  what  we  call  the  phe- 
nomena of  life,  the  fact  still  remains,  that  at  some 


* "  La  vie,"  writes  a  professor  of  physiology  of  the  Faculty  of 
Medicine,  in  Paris,  "  est  une  fonction  chimique  et  la  force  dega- 
gde  par  les  ^tres  vivants  est  une  force  d'origine  chimique."  In 
contradistinction  to  this  statement,  Cardinal  Zigliara  declares  : 
"  Vita  repeti  non  potest  a  materia,"  Again,  life  has  been  defined 
as  "  Une  force  qui  tend  a  perfectionner  et  a  reproduire,  suivant 
une  forme  determinee,  I'fitre  qu'elle  anime  par  une  impulsion 
spontanee." 


ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE.  325 

period  in  the  past  history  of  our  planet,  the  first 
germ  of  organic  life  made  its  appearance,  and  that, 
too,  independent  of  any  antecedent  terrestrial  germ. 

The  Germ  of  Life. 

Whence  this  primordial  germ,  this  first  electric 
spark,  which  effected  the  combination  of  inorganic 
elements  and  transmuted  non-living  into  living  mat- 
ter ?  Is  it  an  "  intellectual  necessity  "  that  we  should, 
with  Tyndall,  "  cross  the  boundary  of  the  experi- 
mental evidence  and  discover  in  matter  the  promise 
and  potency  of  all  terrestrial  life?"'  Must  we  be- 
lieve with  Lucretius  that  nature  "does  all  things 
spontaneously  of  herself,  without  the  meddling  of 
the  gods ;"  and  are  we  forced  to  regard  matter  and 
life  as  indissolubly  joined,  as  entities  which  cannot 
be  divorced  from  one  another  even  in  imagination  ? 
These  are  questions  which  are  constantly  recurring, 
and  while  in  nowise  sharing  the  materialistic  views 
of  Tyndall  and  Lucretius,  we  are,  nevertheless,  forced 
to  admit  that  the  problems  involved  are  as  difficult 
to  solve  as  those  concerning  the  nature  of  life  itself. 
In  1 87 1,  Sir  William  Thomson  (Lord  Kelvin),  in 
an  address  at  Edinburgh,  discussed  a  theory  which 
had  been  broached  by  a  German  speculator.  Prof. 
Richter  of  Dresden,  and  involved  the  careering 
through  space  of  "  seed-bearing  meteoric  stones,"  and 
the  possibility  of  "  one  such  falling  on  the  earth,"  and 
causing  it,  "  by  what  we  blindly  call  natural  causes," 
to  become  "covered  with  vegetation."     "The  hy- 


Fragments  of  Science,"  p.  524. 


326  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

pothesis,"  the  distinguished  physicist  tells  us,  "  may 
seem  wild  and  visionary ;  all  I  maintain  is,  it  is  not 
unscientific." 

But  even  if  it  were  proved  that  the  first  germ  of 
life  had  been  brought  by  some  seed-bearing  meteor- 
ite from  the  depths  of  space,  or  from  some  far 
distant  world,  it  would,  as  is  obvious,  afford  no  ex- 
planation either  of  the  real  nature  or  of  the  ultimate 
origin  of  life.  It  would  be  but  removing  the  diflfi- 
culty  farther  away  ;  not  giving  it  a  solution. 

Still  another  question  confronts  us.  Was  there 
but  one  primordial  germ,  the  origin  and  parent  of 
all  the  multitudinous  forms  of  life  which  now  varie- 
gate and  beautify  the  earth,  or  were  there  many 
germs  independently  implanted  in  the  prepared  soil 
of  this  globe  of  ours  ?  And  if  many,  did  they  make 
their  appearance  simultaneously,  or  at  different  and 
widely  separated  periods  and  localities  ? 

Darwin  inclines  to  the  belief  that  "  all  animals 
and  plants  are  descended  from  some  one  prototype." 
From  this  prototype,  or  primordial  germ,  as  from  a 
common  root,  is  developed  "  the  great  tree  of  organic 
life,"  a  tree  which  is  cdnceived  as  having  "  two  main 
trunks,  one  representing  the  vegetable  and  one  the 
animal  world,"  while  each  trunk  is  pictured  as  "  di- 
viding into  a  few  main  branches,"  the  branches  sub- 
dividing into  a  number  of  branchlets,  and  these,  in 
turn,  into  "  smaller  groups  of  twigs."  Prof.  Weis- 
mann,  on  the  other  hand,  is  of  the  opinion  that  not 
one,  but  numerous  organisms  first  arose  "  spontane- 
ously, simultaneously,  and  independently  one  of 
the  other." 


ORIGIN  AND  NA  TURE  OF  LIFE.  327 

Such  considerations  as  the  foregoing,  and  the 
diverse  and  contradictory  opinions  to  which  they 
have  given  rise,  compel  one,  will-he  nill-he,  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  science,  I  mean  experimental 
science,  can  tell  us  nothing  more  about  the  origin 
of  life  than  it  can  regarding  the  origin  of  matter. 
These  are  questions  which,  by  their  very  nature,  are 
outside  the  sphere  of  inductive  research,  and  their 
answers,  so  far  as  observation  and  experiment  are 
concerned,  must  ever  remain  in  inscrutable  and  in- 
soluble mystery. 

Abiogenesis. 

So  far  as  science  can  pronounce  on  the  matter, 
spontaneous  generation,  as  we  have  already  learned, 
is,  in  the  language  of  Pasteur,  but  a  chimera.  Even 
those  whose  theories  imply,  if  they  do  not  demand, 
the  spontaneous  origination  of  living  from  non-living 
matter,  are  forced  to  admit  that  there  is,  as  yet,  no 
warranty  whatever  for  believing  that  abiogenesis 
obtains  now,  or  ever  has  obtained,  at  any  time  in  the 
past  history  of  our  globe. 

"  I  should  like,"  writes  Darwin,  "  to  see  arche- 
biosis  " — Bastian's  term  for  spontaneous  generation — 
"  proved  true,  for  it  would  be  a  discovery  of  trans- 
cendent importance."  *  So  much,  indeed,  does  the 
theory  of  Evolution,  as  commonly  held,  imply  the 
existence,  at  some  time  or  other,  of  spontaneous 
generation,  that  Fiske  avers:  "However  the  ques- 
tion may  eventually  be  decided,  as  to  the  possibility 
of  archebiosis  occurring  at  the  present  day  amid  the 

>"  Life  and  Letters,"  vol.  II,  p.  437. 


328  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

artificial  circumstances  of  the  laboratory,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  archebiosis,  or  the  origination  of  liv- 
ing matter  in  accordance  with  natural  laws,  must 
have  occurred  at  some  epoch  in  the  past."  ' 

With  Huxley,  as  with  Fiske,  a  belief  in  spon- 
taneous generation  is  a  necessary  corollary  to  the 
theory  of  Evolution.  "  The  fact  is,"  he  affirms,  "  that 
at  the  present  moment  there  is  not  a  shadow  of 
trustworthy  direct  evidence  that  abiogenesis  does 
take  place,  or  has  taken  place,  within  the  period  dur- 
ing which  the  existence  of  life  on  the  globe  is 
recorded.  But  it  need  hardly  be  pointed  out,  that 
the  fact  does  not  in  the  slightest  degree  interfere 
with  any  conclusion  that  may  be  arrived  at,  deduc- 
tively from  other  considerations,  that,  at  some  time 
or  other,  abiogenesis  must  have  taken  place." "  Else- 
where he  declares:  "  If  it  were  given  me  to  look  be- 
yond the  abyss  of  geologically  recorded  time,  to  the 
still  more  remote  period  when  the  earth  was  passing 
through  physical  and  chemical  conditions,  which  it 
can  no  more  see  again  than  a  man  can  recall  his 
infancy,  I  should  expect  to  be  a  witness  of  the  Evo- 
lution of  protoplasm  from  non-living  matter.  I 
should  expect  to  see  it  appear  under  forms  of  great 
simplicity,  endowed,  like  existing  fungi,  with  the 
power  of  determining  the  formation  of  new  pro- 
toplasm from  such  matter  as  ammonium  carbonates, 
oxalates  and  tartrates,  alkaline  and  earthy  phos- 
phates and  water,  without  the  aid  of  light.     That  is 

* "  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,"  vol.  I,  p.  430. 
*  See  his  article  on  Biolog\',  "  Encyclopaedia   Britannica," 
vol.  III. 


ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE  329 

the  expectation  to  which  analogical  reasoning  leads 
me,  but,"  he  adds,  "  I  beg  you  once  more  to  recol- 
lect that  I  have  no  right  to  call  my  opinion  any- 
thing but  an  act  of  philosophical  faith."  * 

Haeckel,  as  we  have  seen,  is  far  more  positive  in 
his  assertions  respecting  spontaneous  generation. 
His  theory  of  Monism  absolutely  demands  it  as  a 
sine  qua  non,  and  he  is  the  first  to  announce  that 
abiogenesis — he  calls  it  autogeny — is  a  necessary  and 
integral  part  of  the  hypothesis  of  universal  Evolu- 
tion, *'  a  necessary  event  in  the  process  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  earth."  *'  He  who  does  not  assume  a 
spontaneous  generation  of  monera  ...  to  ex- 
plain the  first  origin  of  life  upon  our  earth,  has  no 
other  resource  but  to  believe  in  a  supernatural 
miracle ;  and  this  is  the  questionable  standpoint  still 
taken  by  many  so-called  exact  naturalists,  who  thus 
renounce  their  own  reason."  ' 

But  suppose  that  some  time  or  other  it  should 
be  proved,  that  spontaneous  generation  not  only  has 
taken  place,  but  that  it  actually  occurs,  hie  et  nunc  ? 
The  fact  that  we  have  as  yet  no  evidence  that  it 
ever  has  taken  place,  or  that  it  does  not  occur  now, 
does  not  prove  that  it  is  impossible.  We  may  not 
be  prepared  to  affirm,  with  Huxley  and  Fiske,  that 
it  must  have  taken  place  at  some  period  in  past 
history,  but  may  we  not  admit  the  possibility  of 
the  occurrence?  We  certainly  do  not  agree  with 
Haeckel  that  we  renounce  our  reason  if  we  believe 
in  a  special  Divine  intervention  for  the  production 

'"Lay   Sermons,  Addresses  and  Reviews,"  pp.  366  et  seq. 
« "  The  Evolution  of  Man,"  vol.  I,  p.  32. 


880  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

of  life.  Nor  do  we  admit  that  spontaneous  genera- 
tion was  "a  necessary  event  in  the  process  of  the 
development  of  the  earth,"  because  we  contend  that 
so  far  as  observation  and  experiment  go,  they  cao 
tell  us  nothing  more  about  the  nature  and  origin  of 
life  than  they  tell  us  about  the  origin  of  matter. 
And  yet,  notwithstanding  the  last  words  of  Van 
Beneden  and  Pasteur,  regarding  the  origination  of 
entozoa  and  microbes  from  antecedent  life,  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  with  the  progress  of  research  and 
the  development  of  more  delicate  and  powerful  in- 
struments of  observation,  it  may  one  day  be  demon- 
strated that  spontaneous  generation  not  only  can 
occur,  but  actually  does  occur  daily  in  millions  of 
cases,  in  forms  of  life  as  far  below  microbes  in  size 
and  structure  as  these  are  below  the  entozoa. 
Without  hesitation,  therefore,  we  can  subscribe  to 
the  declaration  of  Huxley  when  he  states:  "With 
organic  chemistry,  molecular  physics  and  physiology 
yet  in  their  infancy,  and  every  day  making  prodi- 
gious strides,  I  think  it  would  be  the  height  of  pre- 
sumption for  any  man  to  say  that  the  conditions 
under  which  matter  assumes  the  properties  we  call 
'vital,'  may  not,  some  day,  be  artificially  brought 
together."  ' 

Artificial  Production  of  Life. 

Should,  then,  such  a  discovery  be  made,  as  is 
possible  and  conceivable — I  do  not  say  probable — 
should  some  fortunate  investigator  some  day  detect, 


'  Lay  Sermons,"  p.  366. 


ORIGIN  AND  NA  TURE  OF  LIFE.  331 

in  the  great  laboratory  of  nature,  the  transition  of 
inorganic  into  organic  and  animated  matter,  or 
should  he,  by  some  happy  chance,  be  able  to  trans- 
mute non-living  into  living  matter,  would  there  be 
in  such  a  discovery  aught  that  would  contravene 
revealed  truth,  or  militate  against  any  of  the  received 
dogmas  of  the  Church? 

To  this  question  we  can  at  once,  and  without 
hesitation,  return  an  emphatic  negative.  The  reply 
has,  indeed,  been  indicated  in  the  preceding  pages, 
when  discussing  the  views  of  the  Fathers  and  the 
Schoolmen  respecting  spontaneous  generation.  Not 
only  were  they  all  fully  persuaded  of  the  fact  of  abio- 
genesis,  in  the  case  of  certain  of  the  lower  forms  of 
life,  but  they  also  laid  down  principles  which  are 
quite  compatible  with  the  origination  from  brute 
matter  not  only  of  the  lower,  but  also  of  the  higher 
animals.  Far  from  being  opposed  to  the  Evolution 
of  living  from  non-living  matter,  they,  in  many  in- 
stances, favored  it  as  the  more  probable  hypothesis. 
But  their  views  as  to  the  eflficient  causes  of  such 
Evolution  differed  toto  coelo  from  those  entertained 
by  modern  monists  and  agnostics.  The  latter  attrib- 
ute to  brute  matter,  which,  by  its  very  nature,  is 
passive  and  inert,  the  power  of  passing  unaided 
from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane.  They  completely 
ignore  the  true  formal  and  eflficient  causes  of  devel- 
opment, and  base  their  theories  exclusively  upon  a 
cause  which  is  purely  material.  Not  so  the  Fathers 
and  Doctors  of  the  Church.  They  tell  us  that :  "  The 
primordial  elements  alone  were  created  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  term,  and  that  the  rest  of  nature  was 


332  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

gradually  developed  out  of  these,  according  to  a 
fixed  order  of  natural  operation,  under  the  supreme 
guidance  of  Divine  administration."  They  teach 
that  if  spontaneous  generation  be,  indeed,  a  reality, 
the  matter  which  undergoes  change,  "  having  been 
proximately  disposed,  by  the  action  of  heat  and 
of  other  causes,  of  itself  evolves  into  act  by 
Divine  intervention,  rather  than  that  the  causal 
action  of  an  inanimate  body  should  be  eflficacious 
towards  the  generation  of  life." 

It  is  not,  then,  in  the  case  of  spontaneous  gener- 
ation, the  principle  of  Evolution,  but  the  misappli- 
cation of  this  principle,  which  has  led  to  the  grave 
philosophical  errors  into  which  so  many  modern 
evolutionists  have  fallen.  None  of  the  agnostic  or 
monistic  theories  account  for  life.  "  They  begin 
with  organism,  but  organism  connotes  life.  Whence 
then,  this  life?  Take  the  first  instance  —  and  the 
first  instance  there  must  have  been  —  of  an  inani- 
mate chemical  compound  showing  signs  of  life ;  say 
phenomena  of  cleavage  and  of  subsequent  gastraean 
inversion.  How  is  it  that  this  particular  inanimate 
chemical  compound  has  taken  such  a  start  ?  If  mat- 
ter evolved  itself  spontaneously  into  life,  without  aid 
of  formal  or  efficient  Cause,  why  have  not  the  met- 
amorphic  rocks  through  all  these  aeons  of  time 
shaken  off  the  incubus  of  their  primitive  passivity, 
and  wakened  up  into  protoplasm,  and  thus  secured 
to  themselves  the  privilege  of  self-motion,  internal 
growth,  reproduction  ?  Again,  is  it  possible  to  imag- 
ine that  brute  matter,  inert  and  purely  passive,  could 
by  its  own  unaided  exertion  pass  straight  from  the 


ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE.  333 

laboratory  into  the  kingdom  of  life?  And  if  one 
mass  could  do  it,  why  not  all  ?  Why  do  those  ven- 
erable metamorphic  rocks  remain  at  the  root  of  the 
genealogical  tree,  unchanged  ?  Perhaps  this  may 
prove  another  instance  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
Here,  then,  is  the  flaw.  These  recent  theorists  ac- 
cept life  as  a  fact ;  and  they  start  with  it.  They  are 
superstitiously  contented  to  begin  and  end  with  the 
mystery,  because  they  are  either  afraid  or  unwilling 
to  acknowledge  the  operation  of  a  formal  and  effi- 
cient Cause  in  the  Evolution  of  material  substances." ' 

As  to  the  artificial  production  of  living  from  non- 
living matter,  of  which  sundry  enthusiastic  chemists 
have  so  fondly  dreamed,  it  can  be  positively  asserted 
that  if  ever  effected  it  will  be  along  lines  quite  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  certain  over-sanguine  spec- 
ulators have  indicated. 

The  great  feat  achieved  by  Wohler,  in  1828,  in 
making  urea — an  organic  compound,  previously  sup- 
posed to  be  the  result  of  vital  forces  alone — from 
inorganic  matter,  was  but  the  prelude  of  those  bril- 
liant triumphs  of  synthetic  chemistry  which  since 
have  so  frequently  astonished  the  world.  During 
the  past  few  decades,  especially,  organic  compounds 
of  the  most  marvelous  complexity  have  been  manu- 
factured in  the  laboratory,  until  now  there  are  not 
wanting  chemists  who  affect  to  hope,  that  they  will 
one  day  be  able  to  rival  nature  herself  in  the  num- 
ber and  complexity  of  her  products.  Their  powers 
of  analysis,  we  are  willing  to  concede,  are  practically 
unlimited.     They  can  tell  us  not  only  the  composi- 

'  Harper's  "  Metaphysics  of  the  School,"  vol.  II,  p.  747. 


334  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

tion  of  the  divers  compounds  of  the  mineral  world, 

but  they  are  also  able  to  give  us  the  formulae  of  the 

most  complex  constituents  of  vegetable  and  animal 

tissue.     And  as  time  rolls  on,  the  chemist's  mastery 

over  matter  and  the  forces  of  nature  grows  apace, 

and  often  at  a  rate  that  is  atonishing  to  the  chemist 

himself.     He  now  plays  with  atoms  and  molecules 

as  a  juggler  manipulates  spheres  of  brass,  and  so 

great  is  his  knowledge  of  affinities  and  equivalences, 

so  complete  his  command  over  the  hidden  forces  of 

allotropism    and   isomerism,  that   he  can,  with   the 

utmost  ease,  accomplish  what  a  few  years  ago  would 

have  been  regarded  as  thaumaturgy  of  the  highest 

order. 

Protoplasm. 

The  compound  which  has  received  the  greatest 
share  of  attention,  from  those  who  have  been  look- 
ing forward  to  the  ultimate  production  of  animate 
matter,  is  protoplasm.  This  is  the  substance  to 
which  Huxley  has  given  so  much  notoriety  under 
the  designation  of  "  The  Physical  Basis  of  Life." 

Chemically,  protoplasm  is  composed  of  carbon, 
oxygen,  hydrogen  and  nitrogen.  At  first  it  was  re- 
garded as  a  kind  of  albumen,  called  protein,  and 
was  viewed  as  a  single  compound  of  homogeneous 
structure.  It  was  spoken  of  as  "  a  kind  of  matter 
which  is  common  to  all  living  beings,"  plants  as 
well  as  animals  ;  "  a  single  physical  basis  of  life  un- 
derlying all  the  diversities  of  vital  existence."  '*  It 
is,"  says  Huxley,  "  the  potter's  clay,"  out  of  which  all 
the  Protean  forms  of  animal  and  plant  hfe  are  fash- 
ioned. 


ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE.  335 

Now,  however,  all  this  is  changed.  Protoplasm, 
it  has  been  discovered,  is  not  a  single  chemical  com- 
pound  with  a  definite  and  constant  molecular  struc- 
ture, as  was  formerly  taught.  It  is  something  vastly 
different.  Microscopy  and  micro-chemistry  have 
demonstrated  that  it  is  composed  of  a  dozen  or  more 
substances,  all  of  the  greatest  complexity.  Far  from 
being  a  single,  homogeneous,  transparent,  structure- 
less jelly,  as  described  some  years  ago,  and  as  still 
conceived  by  many  who  glibly  talk  about  it,  proto- 
plasm, on  the  contrary,  is  a  most  highly  organized 
structure,  composed  of  complex  liquid  matter,  gran- 
ules, fibres,  tubules,  nuclein,  and  exhibiting  in  the 
living  organism  the  most  marvelous  properties  and 
the  most  wonderful  activity.  Indeed,  protoplasm 
is  a  word  that  has  almost  vanished  from  the  nomencla- 
ture of  the  cytologist.  And  in  its  place  we  have  a 
score  or  more  of  new  terms,  to  designate  the  constit- 
uents of  what  was  but  a  few  years  ago  regarded,  even 
by  the  ablest  exponents  of  science,  as  a  single  chem- 
ical compound  of  uniform  composition.  Thus,  in 
lieu  of  protoplasm,  we  now  have  nuclein,  pyrenin, 
and  nucleoplasm  ;  paranuclein,  amphipyrenin,  and 
karyoplasm,  not  to  mention  other  com.pounds  equally 
remarkable  and  complicated. 

Such  being  the  case,  there  is  obviously  no  more 
hope  of  the  chemist  eventually  being  able  to  manu- 
facture protoplasm,  than  there  is  of  his  being  able  to 
produce  a  polyp  or  a  sea-urchin.  He  may  build  up 
from  their  simple  elements  complex  compounds  like 
urea,  formic  acid  and  indigo,  because  these  have  a 
definite  molecular  composition,  but  he  can  no  more 


336  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

make  even  a  microscopic  speck  of  protoplasm  than 
he  can  fashion  a  rose  or  a  butterfly. 

Another  consequence  follows  from  the  recent  dis- 
coveries regarding  protoplasm,  and  that  is,  the  im- 
possibility of  originating  life.  If  protoplasm  is  the 
simplest  form  of  matter  in  which  life  exists,  and  if  it 
is  impossible  to  manufacture  even  the  smallest  par- 
ticle of  inanimate  protoplasm,  much  less  living  pro- 
toplasm, it  is  a  fortiori  impossible  to  produce  an 
entity  exhibiting  the  phenomena  characteristic  of  a 
living  being. 

For  a  similar  reason,  all  likelihood  of  discovering 
evidence  in  favor  of  spontaneous  generation  has  van- 
ished. One  may  not,  indeed,  assert  that  it  is  entirely 
impossible.  So  far,  it  is  true,  protoplasm  is  the  sim- 
plest substance  which  exhibits  the  phenomena  of  life, 
and  we  know  of  no  kind  of  protoplasm  which  is  sim- 
pler than  that  above  mentioned.  This,  however,  does 
not  imply  that  there  are  not  simpler  forms  of  living 
matter.  It  is  possible  that  there  are  living  beings  so 
simple  that  their  composition  may  be  represented 
exactly  by  a  chemical  formula  ;  that  they  have  a 
fixed,  definite,  molecular  arrangement,  like  some  of 
our  complex  organic  compounds.  It  is  possible  that 
ultimately  the  chemist  may  discover  the  proximate 
constituents  of  such  a  substance,  and  be  able  to  in- 
dicate how  it  is  produced  by  nature,  or  how  it  may 
be  manufactured  in  an  inanimate  condition  in  the 
laboratory.  All  this  is  possible,  all  conceivable.  The 
past  triumphs  of  organic  chemistry,  as  well  as  our 
increasing  knowledge  of  the  lower  forms  of  life,  per- 
mit such  an  assumption.     Yet  it  is  only  an  assump- 


ORIGIN  AND  NA  TURE  OF  LIFE.  337 

tion.  But  so  far  as  protoplasm  is  concerned,  so  far 
as  there  is  question  of  the  simplest  unicellular  moner 
which  the  microscopist  has  yet  observed,  we  can  un- 
hesitatingly say  that  spontaneous  generation  is  im- 
possible. We  may  conceive  how  simple  chemical 
forces  can  produce  a  chemical  compound  of  even  the 
greatest  complexity.  But  we  cannot  picture  to  our- 
selves how  such  forces,  unaided  and  alone,  can  pro- 
duce an  intricate  organism,  such  as  is  even  the  lowest 
representative  of  animate  nature.  It  were  as  easy  to 
imagine  a  watch  evolving  itself  spontaneously  from 
the  raw  material  which  composes  it ;  to  picture  a 
man-of-war  arising  spontaneously  from  the  piles  of 
wood  and  stores  of  iron  and  brass  in  a  shipyard. 

If,  then,  spontaneous  generation  is  not  a  chimera, 
it  is  something  which  has  far  humbler  beginnings 
than  has  ordinarily  been  supposed.  If  it  ever  took 
place  at  all,  it  must  have  occurred  in  some  homoge- 
neous chemical  compound  which  was  the  product  of 
known  chemical  forces.  And  if  this  be  true,  the 
time  which  elapsed  from  the  formation  of  such  a  liv- 
ing compound,  until  its  development  into  the  highly 
organized  protoplasm  which  we  now  know,  must 
have  embraced  as  many  long  aeons  as  intervened 
between  the  advent  of  protoplasm  and  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  the  higher  orders  of  animal  and  plant 
life. 

The  mechanical  theory  of  life,  it  is  thus  seen,  is 
far  from  being  borne  out  by  the  known  facts  of 
science.  It  assumed  the  homogeneity  of  protoplasm  ; 
and  in  this  it  was  in  error.  It  assumes  the  origin  of 
life  by  the  action  on  the  elements  of  forces  which 


338  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

are  resident  in  matter,  and  teaches  that  living  differs 
from  brute  matter  only  in  the  relative  complexity  of 
molecular  structure,  and  of  the  higher  integration  of 
forces  which  is  the  natural  result  of.  complexity  of 
structure.  When  such  assumption  denies,  as  it  usu- 
ally does  deny,  the  existence  of  any  force  outside  of 
matter ;  when  it  makes  matter,  as  such,  the  sole  cause 
of  the  countless  evolutions  which  have  occurred  in 
the  past  development  of  the  universe  ;  when  it  at- 
tempts, as  does  Virchow,  to  resolve  the  production 
of  the  divers  forms  of  life  from  inanimate  matter 
into  a  question  of  mere  mechanics  ;  when,  finally,  it 
not  only  ignores,  but  positively  denies,  the  ever  pres- 
ent, unceasing  action  of  the  Divine  administration ; 
then  we  can  as  unhesitatingly  pronounce  it  false,  as 
it  is  demonstrably  so  in  predicating  homogeneity  of 
protoplasm.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  as  dififi- 
cult  for  the  theist,  without  assuming  the  interven- 
tion of  a  miracle,  to  conceive  of  the  formation  of  a 
single  chemical  compound  from  its  constituent  ele- 
ments, not  to  speak  of  the  spontaneous  origination 
of  living  matter,  as  it  was  to  Darwin  to  picture  to 
his  mind  the  production  of  an  elephant  by  the  sud- 
den flashing  of  certain  elemental  atoms  into  living 
tissues.  Given  matter,  however,  and  forces  compe- 
tent to  transform  matter — such  forces,  as  well  as  the 
matter  which  they  affect,  being  always  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Divine  administration — and  there  is 
nothing  in  the  theory  of  the  origination  of  living 
from  not-living  matter,  that  is  contrary  either  to  faith 
or  philosophy.  On  the  contrary,  such  a  view  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  quite  in  harmony  with  both  the  one  and  the 


ORIGIN  AND  NA  TURE  OF  LIFE.  339 

Other.  Under  such  conditions  the  spontaneous  gen- 
eration, either  in  the  laboratory  of  nature  or  in  that 
of  the  chemist,  presents  no  greater  difficulties  than 
does  the  conversion  of  a  bar  of  steel  into  a  magnet. 
In  both  cases  it  is  God  who  is  the  author  of  the 
change,  yet  God  acting  not  directly,  but  through  the 
instrumentality  of  natural  agencies ;  through  the 
"seminal  reasons"  and  the  laws  of  nature  which  He 
conferred  on  matter  in  the  beginning. 


A 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   SIMIAN   ORIGIN   OF   MAN. 
The  Missing  Link. 

NOTHER  question  in  connection  with  Evolution 
which  has  attracted  even  greater  attention  than 
spontaneous  generation,  is  that  respecting  the  animal 
origin  of  man.  If  it  be  true  that  living  has  evolved 
from  not-living  matter ;  if  it  be  admitted  that  the 
higher  are  genetically  related  to  the  lower  forms  of 
life,  then,  we  are  told,  the  only  logical  inference  is 
that  man  is  descended  from  some  form  of  animal. 
With  the  majority  of  contemporary  non-Catholic 
evolutionists,  the  conviction  of  the  truth  of  man's 
animal  origin  is  so  strong,  that  it  is  accepted  as  a  fact 
which  no  longer  admits  of  doubt.  According  to 
their  view,  all  that  remains  is  to  trace  man's  relation- 
ship with  his  dumb  predecessor,  to  discover  the 
"missing  link"  which  connects  him  with  the  beasts 
of  the  field,  and  the  controversy  is  closed  forever. 

Here  again,  as  in  the  case  of  spontaneous  gener- 
ation, we  must  carefully  discriminate  between  fact 
and  theory ;  between  positive  evidence  for  man's 
simian  genealogy,  and  the  various  assumptions  which 
so  many  evolutionists  are  ever  too  ready  to  ask  us  to 
accept. 

I  can  do  no  better  than  reproduce  here  the  tes- 
timony of  one  who  will  not  be  accused  of  bias 
(340) 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  841 

towards  Theism  ;  who,  far  from  being  opposed  to  the 
theory  of  man's  descent  from  the  ape,  most  strongly 
favors  it,  but  who  insists  on  having  evidence  of  such 
connection  before  giving  his  assent.  I  refer  to  the 
celebrated  anatomist  and  anthropologist.  Dr.  Ru- 
dolph Virchow,  than  whom  no  one  is  more  compe- 
tent to  give  an  opinion  on  this  much-vexed  question. 
In  an  address  delivered  before  the  twentieth  gen- 
eral meeting  of  the  German  Anthropological  Associ- 
ation,  at  Vienna,  August,  1889,  he  gave  a  review  of  the 
progress  of  anthropology  during  the  preceding  two 
decades.  In  the  course  of  his  discourse  he  asserted, 
what  he  has  more  recently  afifirmed  at  Moscow  and 
elsewhere,  that  there  is  as  yet  not  a  scintilla  of  evi- 
dence  for  the  ape-origin  of  man,  and  that  even  the 
hope  of  discovering  the  missing  link  is  something 
that  does  not  find  any  warranty  in  the  known  facts 
of  anthropology. 

"At  the  time  of  our  coming  together  twenty  years 
ago,"  he  says,  "  Darwinism  had  just  made  its  first 
triumphal  march  through  the  world.  My  friend, 
Carl  Vogt,  with  his  usual  vigor  entered  the  contest, 
and  through  his  personal  advocacy  secured  for  this 
theory  a  great  adherence.  At  that  time  it  was  hoped 
that  the  theory  of  descent  would  conquer,  not  in  the 
form  promulgated  by  Darwin,  but  in  that  advanced 
by  his  followers  ;  for  we  have  to  deal  now  not  with 
Darwin  but  with  Darwinians.  No  one  doubted 
that  the  proof  would  be  forthcoming,  demonstrating 
that  man  descended  from  the  monkey  and  that  this 
descent  from  a  monkey,  or  at  least  from  some  kind 
of  an  animal,  would  soon  be  established.     This  was 


342  B VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA. 

a  challenge  which  was  made  and  successfully  de- 
fended in  the  first  battle.  Everybody  knew  all  about 
it  and  was  interested  in  it.  Some  spoke  for  it ; 
others  against  it.  It  was  considered  the  greatest 
question  of  anthropology. 

"  Let  me  remind  you,  however,  at  this  point,  that 
natural  science,  so  long  as  it  remains  such,  works 
only  with  real,  existing  objects.  A  hypothesis  may 
be  discussed,  but  its  significance  can  only  be  estab- 
lished by  producing  actual  proofs  in  its  favor,  either 
by  experiments  or  direct  observations.  This,  Dar- 
winism has  not  succeeded  in  doing.  In  vain  have  its 
adherents  sought  for  connecting  links  which  should 
connect  man  with  the  monkey.  Not  a  single  one 
has  been  found.  The  so-called  pro-anthropos,  which 
is  supposed  to  represent  this  connecting  link,  has 
not  as  yet  appeared.  No  real  scientist  claims  to  have 
seen  him.  Hence  the  pro-ant hropos  is  not  at  present 
an  object  of  discussion  for  an  anthropologist.  Some 
may  be  able  to  see  him  in  their  dreams,  but  when 
awake  they  will  not  be  able  to  say  they  have  met 
him.  Even  the  hope  of  a  future  discovery  of  this 
pro-anthropos  is  highly  improbable ;  for  we  are  not 
living  in  a  dream,  or  in  an  ideal  world,  but  in  a  real 
one."' 


'  See  Smithsonian  Report  for  i88g,  pp.  563,  et  seq.  In  his 
address  before  the  International  Archaeological  Congress  at 
Moscow,  in  1892,  Prof.  Virchow  made  the  following  declaration  : 

"  C'est  en  vain  qu'on  cherche  le  chainon,  the  missing  link, 
qui  aurait  uni  I'homme  au  singe  ou  a  quelque  autre  espece  ani- 
male. 

"II  existe  une  Hmite  trancheequi  separe  I'homme  de  I'ani- 
mal  et  qu'on  n'a  pu  jusqu'  icieffacer;  c'est  Vhir^dite  qui  trans- 
met  aux  enfants  les  facultes  des  parents.     Nous  n'avons  jamais 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN  348 

But  although  there  is  no  tangible  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  the  missing  link,  connecting  man  with 
the  monkey  or  with  lower  forms  of  life,  some  people 
have,  nevertheless,  to  use  Virchow's  ironical  words, 
"  seen  him  in  their  dreams."  They  have  seen  him  in 
the  gorilla  and  in  the  orang-outang,  in  the  lemur  and 
in  the  kangaroo.  They  have  observed  him  in  the 
Neanderthal  man,  and  in  the  men  of  Naulette,  Denise, 
of  Canstadt  and  of  Eguisheim.  De  Mortillet  has 
scrutinized  him  in  the  imaginary  being  that  fashioned 
the  flint-flakes  of  Thenay,  Puy-Courny  and  Portugal. 
And  so  sure  is  he  that  he  has  discovered  our  im- 
mediate ancestor,  that  he  has  dubbed  him  with  the 
name,  anthropopithems,  the  man-ape,  or  the  ape- 
man.'  Darwin  has  described  him  as  a  hairy  pithecoid 
animal,  arboreal  in  habits  and  a  denizen  of  "  some 
warm  forest-clad  land."     According  to  Cope,  man  is 


vu  qu'un  singe  mette  au  nionde  un  homme,  ou  que  rhomme  pro- 
duise  vm  singe.  Tons  les  hommes  a  I'aspect  simiesque  ne  sont 
que  de  produits  pathologiques. 

"  A  premiere  vue,  il  est  tres  facile  de  supposer  qu'un  crane 
dolicocephale  se  transforme  en  un  crane  brachycephale,  et 
cependant  personne  n'a  encore  observe  la  transformation  d'une 
race  dolicocephale  en  une  race  brachycephale,  et  vice  versa,  ou 
celle  d'une  race  negre  en  une  race  aryenne. 

"  Ainsi,  dans  la  question  de  I'homme,  nous  sommes  repousses 
sur  toute  la  ligne.  Toutes  les  recherches  entreprises  dans  le 
but  de  trouver  la  continuite  dans  le  developpement  progressif,  ont 
ete  sans  resultat;  il  n'existe  pas  de  fro-anthropos:  il  n'existe  pas 
d'homme-singe  ;  le  chainon  intermediaire  demeure  un  fantome."' 
Revue  Scientijique,  Nov.  5,  1892. 

'  In  striking  contrast  with  the  fanciful  theories  of  De  Mortil- 
let, are  the  clearly  expressed  views  of  De  Quatrefages,  one  of 
the  most  eminent  of  modern  anthropologists.  Referring  to  the 
subject  under  consideration  he  asserts  "  Dolichocephalic  or 
brachycephalic,  large  or  small,  orthognathous  or  prognathous, 
Qiiaternary  man  is  always  man  in  the  full  acceptance  of  the 
word."     "The  Human  Species,"  p.  294. 


844  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  D OGMA . 

but  "a  pentadactylic,  plantigrade  bunadont,"  and  is 
genetically  connected  with  the  \emuroid,  p/ienacodus 
and  the  anaptomorphus  homunculus,  both  of  which 
flourished  in  the  early  Tertiary  Period.  Haeckel 
goes  further  back  and  discerns  in  the  skull-less,  brain- 
less and  memberless  amphioxus,  an  animal  which 
we  should  regard  with  special  veneration  "as  being 
of  our  own  flesh  and  blood,"  and  as  being  the  only 
one  of  all  extant  animals  which  "  can  enable  us  to 
form  an  approximate  conception  of  our  earliest 
vertebrate  ancestors." 

All  these  imaginings,  however,  are,  as  Virchow 
truly  observes,  but  dreams,  hypotheses  more  or  less 
extravagant,  which  have  secured  for  their  origina- 
tors a  certain  amount  of  temporary  notoriety,  but 
which  have  no  foundation  whatsoever  in  any  fact  or 
legitimate  induction  of  science.* 

But  if  the  fact  of  the  animal  origin  of  man  has 
not  been  established,  if  there  is  no  likelihood  that  it 
will  be  established,  at  least  in  the  immediate  future, 
even  according  to  the  testimony  of  those  who  are 
most  desirous  of  seeing  the  pithecoid  ancestry  of 
man  demonstrated,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  opinions 
of  those  who,  nevertheless,  maintain  the  animal  origin 
of  man,  if  not  as  a  fact,  at  least  as  a  tenable  opin- 
ion ?  Is  such  an  opinion  compatible  with  Dogma, 
and  can  a  consistent  Catholic  assent  to  any  of  the 


'  In  his  admirable  study,  "Apes  and  Man,"  St.  George  Miv- 
art,  a  pronounced  evolutionist,  gives,  in  a  few  words,  the  verdict 
of  comparative  anatomy  respecting  the  simian  origin  of  man. 
He  says,  p.  172  :  "  It  is  manifest  that  man,  the  apes  and  half- 
apes,  cannot  be  arranged  in  a  single  ascending  series  of  which 
man  is  the  term  and  culmination." 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  345 

theories  now  in  vogue  which  claim  that  man  is  genet- 
ically related  to  the  inferior  animals?  This  is  a 
question  which  is  often  put,  and  one  which,  far  from 
being  treated  with  derision,  as  is  so  often  the  case, 
should  receive  a  serious  and  a  deliberate  answer. 

We  have  seen  that  a  belief  in  spontaneous  gen- 
eration, and  in  the  development  of  the  higher  forms 
of  animal  and  plant  life  from  the  lower  forms,  is 
quite  compatible  with  both  revelation  and  faith  ;  but 
can  this  likewise  be  said  of  the  development  of  man 
from  a  monkey  or  from  any  other  inferior  animal  ? 

The  Human  Soul. 

As  to  the  soul  of  man  we  can  at  once  emphatic- 
ally declare,  that  it  is  in  nowise  evolved  from  the 
souls  of  animals,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  and  in  the 
case  of  each  individual,  directly  and  immediately 
created  by  God  Himself.  I  do  not  say  that  this  is  a 
dogma  of  faith,  because  the  question  has  never  been 
formally  defined  by  the  Church.  It  is,  however. 
Catholic  doctrine,  and  has  been  taught  almost  uni- 
versally from  the  time  of  the  apostles. 

I  say  "  almost  universally,"  because  other  opin< 
ions  regarding  the  origin  of  the  soul  have  been  held 
and  defended  even  by  some  of  the  most  eminent  of 
the  Church's  Doctors  and  Fathers.  Origen,  for  in- 
stance, misled  by  a  conception  of  Plato,  imagined 
that  God,  in  the  beginning,  created  a  large  number 
of  spirits,  all  equally  endowed  with  natural  and 
supernatural  gifts.  Many  of  these  spirits  having 
sinned,  God,  to  punish  them,  created  the  corporeal 
world   and    imprisoned    them    in   various   kinds   of 


846  EVOLU TION  A ND  DOGMA. 

bodies,  according  to  the  gravity  of  their  transgres- 
sions. Those  whose  offences  were  slight  were  united 
with  the  heavenly  bodies ;  those  who  transgressed 
most  gravely  were  condemned  to  a  union  with  cold 
and  obscure  bodies ;  whilst  those  whose  sin  was  of 
medium  gravity  were  compelled  to  seek  an  abode  in 
human  bodies.  It  is  this  third  class  of  spirits  that 
are  known  as  human  souls.  This  error  found  favor 
with  the  Manicheans  and  other  heretics  who  taught 
the  transmigration  of  souls,  and  is  at  bottom  the 
same  as  the  doctrine  of  modern  spiritualists  who 
teach  the  soul's  reincarnation. 

Another  error  regarding  the  origin  of  the  soul, 
which  has  had  numerous  defenders,  is  that  commonly 
known  as  Traducianism.  There  are,  however,  two 
kinds  of  Traducianism,  which  must  be  distinguished 
one  from  the  other.  These  are  corporeal  Traducian- 
ism and  spiritual  Traducianism. 

Corporeal  Traducianism,  St.  Augustine  tells  us, 
was  taught  by  Tertullian.'  According  to  his  view, 
the  human  soul  is  but  a  subtile,  material  substance, 
and  the  soul  of  the  son,  like  the  body,  proceeds 
directly  from  the  father  by  ordinary  generation. 
Such  teaching  manifestly  reduces  the  souls  of  men 
to  the  same  level  as  the  souls  of  brutes,  and  is  tanta- 
mount to  a  denial  of  their  spirituality  and  immortal- 
ity. This  error  was  adopted  by  the  Apollinarists 
and  Luciferians,  and  is  essentially  the  same  as  that 


'  Cf.  "  De  Anima,"  cap.  xix,  where  he  asserts  "hominis 
anima,  veUit  surculus  quidam  ex  matrice  Adam  in  propaginem 
deducta,  et  genetalibus  feminje  foveis  commendata  cum  omni  sua 
paratura,  pullulabit  tarn  intellectu  quam  et  sensu." 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  Ml 

which  is  held  by  materialists  generally  regarding  the 
origin  of  the  human  soul. 

Spiritual  Traducianism,  or  Generationism,  like 
corporeal  Traducianism,  teaches  that  the  soul  of  the 
son  proceeds  from  the  soul  of  the  father,  not  indeed 
through  the  agency  of  any  corporeal  action,  but 
through  a  special  superior  and  spiritual  kind  of  pro- 
creation.' 

This  form  of  Traducianism  was  favorably  consid- 
ered by  such  a  light  of  the  Church  as  St.  Augustine, 
and  even  in  his  "  Retractationes"  he  hesitates  be- 
tween this  opinion  and  that  which  declares,  that  God 
creates  directly  and  immediately  each  and  every  in- 
dividual soul.  In  his  "  De  Libero  Arbitrio,"  in  his 
"  De  Anima  et  ejus  Origine,"  and  in  a  letter  to  St. 
Jerome,  he  speaks  of  no  fewer  than  four  theories 
regarding  the  soul,  and  declares  himself  unable  to 
say  which  one  should  be  accepted. ' 

Among  the  more  prominent  modern  traducian- 
ists  may  be  mentioned  Leibnitz,  Rosmini,  and  the 
Austrian  priest,  Froschammer.  Their  theories,  it  is 
true,  varied  considerably  in  detail,  but  fundamentally 
they  were  to  all  intents  and  purposes  identical." 


'  '*  Incorporeum  semen  animae,  sua  quadam  occulta  et  in- 
visibili  via  seorsum  ex  patrecurrat  in  matrem,"as  St.  Augustine 
writes  to  Optatus,  chap.  iv. 

^In  his  "  De  Libero  Arbitrio"  the  saint  writes:  "  Harum 
autem  quatuor  de  anima  sententiarum,  utrumne  de  propagine 
veniant,  an  in  singulis  quibusque  nascentibus  novae  fiant,  an  in 
corpora  nascentium  jam  alicubi  existentes  vel  mittantur  divini- 
tus,  vel  sua  sponte  labantur,  nuUam  temere  affirmare  oportebit." 
Lib.  Ill,  cap.  XXI. 

*  A  brief  note  will  give  the  gist  of  the  teachings  of  these  three 
philosophers.  In  his  "  Essais  de  Theodic^e,"  part.  I,  num.91, 
the  German  philosopher  thus  expresses  his  belief,  "Je  croirais 


348  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

This  is,  not,  however,  the  place  to  discuss  in  de- 
tail the  divers  theories  above  referred  to  respect- 
ing the  origin  of  the  human  soul,  nor  to  refute  the 
errors  which  these  theories  contain.  It  will  suffice 
for  our  present  purpose  to  state,  that  corporeal  Tra- 
ducianism,  as  well  as  the  opinion  of  Origen,  have  been 
condemned  as  contrary  to  faith.  As  to  spiritual 
Traducianism,  as  favored  by  Rosmini,  Klee  and 
Ubaghs,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  while  it  is 
not  heresy,  no  one  can  now  defend  it  without  justly 
being  regarded  as  temerarious. 

I  have  said  that  Creationism  has  never  been  form- 
ally defined  as  a  dogma  of  faith,  but  it  can  most 
probably  be  regarded  as  implicitly  defined,  and  pos- 
sessing all  the  conditions  necessary  to  its  being  con- 
sidered as  one  of  those  truths  which  constitute  a 
part  of  revealed  doctrine,  and  a  portion,  therefore, 
of  the  original  deposit  of  the  Christian  faith.  Dur- 
ing  the  time  of  St.  Augustine,  owing  to  the  Pelagian 

que  les  ames  qui  seront  un  jour  atnes  humaines,  ont  ^t^  dans 
les  semences  et  dans  les  ancetres  jusqu'a  Adam,  at  ont  exists 
par  consequent,  depuis  le  commencement  des  choses,  toujours 
dans  une  maniere  de  corps  organist."  In  his  "Anthropo- 
logia,"  lib.  IV,  cap.  v,  Rosmini  writes  :  "  Unde  in  generatione 
individui  speciei  humanie  concurrunt  dure  causae  simul  operantes, 
homo  generatione  et  Deus  manifestatione  suae  lucis  ;  homo  ponit 
animal,  Deus  creat  animam  inteliigentem  in  eodem  instanti 
quo  animal  humanum  ponitur,  creat  animam  eam  illuminando 
splendore  vultus  sui,  ipsi  participando  aliquid  sui,  ens  ideale,  quod 
est  lumen  creaturarum  intelligentium."  Froschammer,  in  his 
"  Defensio  Generationis  Anime,"  attributes  to  parents  the 
power  of  creating  the  souls  of  their  children,  for  says  he  :  "  Gen- 
eratione parentum  homo  secundum  corpus  et  animam  oritur  vi 
potestatis  creandi  secundariae,  quae  naturae  humanie  immanens 
et  in  prima  rerum  origine  a  Deo  coUata  est.  .  ,  .  Itaque 
generatio  est  actus  creationis  naturae  humanie,  est  creatio  ex 
nihilo,  per  potentiam  secundariam  a  Deo  humanitati  colla- 
tanj." 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  349 

heresy  and  the  discussions  which  arose  concerning 
the  transmission  of  original  sin,  the  dogmatic  tradi- 
tion respecting  the  origin  of  the  soul  was  not  so 
strongly  affirmed  as  it  was  subsequently,  and  hence 
the  vacillations  of  the  great  Bishop  of  Hippo,  and 
others,  between  Creationism  and  Traducianism.' 
Since  the  time,  however,  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas 
and  St.  Bonaventure,  the  doctrine  of  Creationism  has 
been  regarded  as  practically  beyond  controversy, 
among  all  well-accredited  theologians,  and  we  can 
now  look  upon  Melchior  Cano  as  accurately  express- 
ing the  mind  of  the  Church,  when  he  declares  that  it 
*'  without  doubt  pertains  to  faith,  that  the  soul  ex- 
ists not  through  generation,  but  by  creation." " 

Creation  of  Man's  Body. 

So  far,  then,  as  the  soul  of  man  is  concerned,  it 
is  manifest  from  the  foregoing  paragraphs  that 
according  to  Catholic  teaching,  each  individual  soul 
is  created  directly  and  immediately  by  Almighty 
God.  Man,  however,  is  not  a  pure  spirit,  but  a 
creature  composed  of  a  rational  soul  and  a  corrupti- 
ble body.  The  question  now  arises:  Was  the  body 
of  the  first  man,  the  progenitor  of  our  race,  created 
directly  and  immediately  by  God,  or  was  it  created 
indirectly  and  through  the  operation  of  secondary 

'  "  Tempore  Aug^stini  nondutn  erat  per  Ecclesiam  declara- 
tiim,  quod  anima  non  esset  ex  traduce,"  writes  tlie  Angelic 
Doctor. 

" "  Nunc  autem,  cum  post  ea  tempora  theologorum  fideli- 
umque  omnium  firmatum  sit,  animam  non  per  generationem, 
sed  per  creationem  existere,  sine  dubio  ad  fidem  ilia  qu^stio  per- 
tinet."    "De  Loc.  Theol.,"  lib.  XII,  cap.  xiv. 


350  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

causes?  When  the  Bible  tells  us  that  "the  Lord 
God  formed  man  from  the  slime  of  the  earth,"  are 
we  to  interpret  these  words  in  a  rigorously  literal 
sense,  and  to  believe  that  the  Creator  actually  fash- 
ioned Adam  from  the  slime  of  the  earth,  as  a  potter 
would  fashion  an  object  from  clay,  or  as  an  artist 
would  produce  the  model  of  a  statue  from  wax  or 
plaster?  Or,  may  we  put  a  different  interpretation 
on  the  text  and  regard  man,  quoad  corpus,  as  indi- 
rectly created,  as  the  last  and  highest  term  of  a  long 
series  of  evolutions  which  extend  back  to  the  first 
advent  of  life  upon  earth.  In  other  words,  is  man, 
as  to  his  body,  the  direct  and  special  work  of  the 
Creator's  hands,  or  is  he  the  descendant  of  some 
animal,  some  anthropoid  ape  or  some  "missing 
link,"  of  which  naturalists  as  yet  have  discovered  no 
trace  ? 

This  is  one  of  the  burning  questions  of  science ; 
one  which  has  given  to  Darwinism  most  of  its  noto- 
riety and  importance,  and  one  which  is  inseparably 
linked  with  every  theory  of  organic  Evolution  by 
whomsoever  advocated.  We  have  seen  that,  as 
Catholics,  we  are  at  liberty  to  accept  the  theory  of 
Evolution  as  to  all  the  multifarious  forms  of  animal 
and  plant  life,  that  it  is,  indeed,  a  probable,  if  not 
the  most  probable,  theory,  and  that  far  from  derogat- 
ing from  the  wisdom  and  omnipotence  of  God,  it 
affords  us,  on  the  contrary,  a  nobler  conception  of 
the  Deity  than  does  the  traditional  view  of  special 
creation.  May  we  now  extend  the  Evolution  the- 
ory so  as  to  embrace  the  body  of  man,  and  allow 
that  it  is  no  exception  to  the  law  which,  we  may 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  351 

admit,  has  obtained  in  the  Evolution  of  all  other 
forms  of  terrestrial  life  ?  Or,  is  there  anything  in 
Scripture  and  in  the  dogmatic  teaching  of  the 
Church,  that  will  preclude  such  a  view  of  the  animal 
part  of  our  first  ancestor? 

We  have  already  learned  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  no  positive  evidence  has  been  adduced  in  sup- 
port of  the  simian  origin  of  man,  and  that  there  is 
little,  if  any,  reason  to  believe  that  such  evidence  will 
be  forthcoming.  Since  the  publication  of  Darwin's 
"Origin  of  Species,"  naturalists  have  been  exploring 
every  portion  of  the  globe  for  some  trace  of  the 
missing  link  between  man  and  the  highest  known 
mammal,  a  link  which  they  said  must  exist  some- 
where, if  the  hypothesis  of  Evolution  of  man  be 
true.  Explorations  have  been  conducted  in  the 
dark  forests  of  equatorial  Africa,  in  the  dense  jungles 
of  southern  Asia,  in  the  slightly-frequented  islands 
of  every  sea,  in  the  caves  and  lake-dwellings  of 
Europe,  in  the  mounds  and  cliff-dwellings  of  Amer- 
ica, in  the  gravel  beds  and  stalactitic  deposits  of  the 
Tertiary  and  Quaternary  Periods,  in  the  tombs  and 
burial  places  of  prehistoric  man ;  but  all  to  no  pur- 
pose.  Men  have,  indeed,  fancied  that  they  had  dis- 
covered the  missing  link  in  the  dryopithecus,  in 
pygmies  of  Central  Africa,  in  the  Andaman  Island- 
ers, in  the  Ainos  of  Japan,  in  the  anthropopithecus 
erectus,  recently  discovered  by  Dubois  in  the  Pleis- 
tocene strata  of  Java,  but  if  we  may  judge  by  those 
who  are  most  competent  to  pronounce  an  opinion 
in  the  premises,  the  long-looked  for  link  connect- 
ing man  with  the  ape  is  as  far  away  now,  and  its 


352  E  VOL UTION  AND  DOGMA. 

existence  as  little  probable,  as  it  was  thirty  years 
ago,  if  indeed  it  is  not  less  probable. 

But  granting  that  the  search  for  the  link  connect- 
ing man  with  the  ape  has  so  far  been  futile;  admit- 
ting, with  Virchow,  that  "  the  future  discovery  of  this 
pro-anthropos  is  highly  improbable ;"  may  we  not, 
nevertheless,  believe,  as  a  matter  of  theory,  that 
there  has  been  such  a  link,  and  that,  corporeally,  man 
is  genetically  descended  from  some  unknown  species 
of  ape  or  monkey  ?  Analogy  and  scientific  consist- 
ency, we  are  told,  require  us  to  admit  that  man's 
bodily  frame  has  been  subject  to  the  same  law  of 
Evolution,  if  an  Evolution  there  has  been,  as  has 
obtained  for  the  inferior  animals.  There  is  nothing 
in  biological  science  that  would  necessarily  exempt 
man's  corporeal  structure  from  the  action  of  this  law. 
Is  there,  then,  anything  in  Dogma  or  sound  meta- 
physics, which  would  make  it  impossible  for  us,  salva 
fide,  to  hold  a  view  which  has  found  such  favor 
with  the  great  majority  of  contemporary  evolution- 
ists? 

Mivart's  Theory. 

It  was  the  distinguished  biologist  and  philoso- 
pher, St.  George  Mivart,  who  first  gave  a  categorical 
answer  to  these  questions  in  his  interesting  little 
work,  "  The  Genesis  of  Species,"  published  nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago.  He  contended  that  it  is 
not  "  absolutely  necessary  to  suppose  that  any  action 
different  in  kind  took  place  in  the  production  of 
man's  body,  from  that  which  took  place  in  the  pro- 
duction of  the  bodies  of  other  animals,  and  of  the 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  353 

whole  material  universe."  '  To  judge  from  his  sub- 
sequent writings,  time  has  but  confirmed  him  in  this 
view  and  afforded  him  opportunities  of  developing 
and  corroborating  his  argument. 

When  Mivart's  book  first  appeared  it  was  se- 
verely criticised  by  the  Catholic  press,  both  of  the 
Old  and  the  New  World,  and  its  author  was  in 
many  instances  denounced  as  a  downright  heretic. 
Indeed,  he  was  almost  as  roundly  and  as  generally 
berated,  by  a  certain  class  of  theologians,  as  was 
Charles  Darwin  after  the  publication  of  his  "  Origin 
of  Species."  In  England,  France  and  Germany  the 
denunciation  of  the  daring  biologist  was  particularly 
vehement,  and  strenuous  efforts  were  made  to  have 
his  work  put  on  the  Index.  It  was  almost  the  uni- 
versal opinion  among  theologians,  that  the  proposi- 
tion defended  was  heretical,  and  it  was  considered 
only  a  matter  of  a  short  time  until  it  would  be 
formally  condemned.  The  book  was  forwarded  to 
Rome,  but,  contrary  to  the  expectations  of  all  who 
were  eagerly  watching  the  course  events  would  take, 
the  book  was  not  condemned.  Neither  was  its 
author  called  upon  to  retract  or  modify  the  proposi- 
tion which  had  been  such  an  occasion  of  scandal. 
Far  from  censuring  the  learned  scientist,  the  pope, 
Pius  IX,  made  him  a  doctor  of  philosophy,  and  the 
doctor's  hat  was  conferred  on  him  by  no  less  a  per- 
sonage than  Cardinal  Manning  himself.' 


*  Page  2S2. 

* "  My  '  Genesis  of  Species,' "  writes  Mivart,  "  was  published 
in  1870,  and  therein  I  did  not  hesitate  to  promulgate  the  idea 
that  Adam's  body  might  have  arisen  from  a  non-human  animal, 

E.— 93 


354  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Since  1871,  when  Mivart's  book  was  given  to  the 
world,  a  great  change  of  sentiment  has  been  effected 
among  those  who  were  at  first  so  opposed  to  his  opin- 
ions, and  who  imagined  they  discerned  lurking  in  them 
not  only  rank  heresy  but  also  bald  and  unmitigated 
Materialism.  Men  have  had  time  to  examine  dis- 
passionately the  suspected  propositions,  and  to  com- 
pare them  with  both  the  formal  definitions  of  the 
Church  and  the  teachings  of  the  Fathers.  The  result 
of  unimpassioned  investigation  and  mature  reflection 
has  been,  not  indeed  a  vindication  of  the  truth  of  the 
position  of  the  English  scientist,  but  a  feeling  that 
his  theory  may  be  tolerated,  and  that  because  it  deals 
rather  with  a  question  of  science  than  with  one  of 
theology.  It  has  been  shown  that  his  propositions 
do  not  positively  contravene  any  of  the  formal  defi- 
nitions of  the  Church,  and  that  both  St.  Augustine 
and  the  Angelic  Doctor,  to  mention  no  others,  have 
laid  down  principles,  which  may  be  regarded  as  recon- 
cilable with  the  thesis  defended  with  so  much  in- 
genuity by  the  brilliant  author  of  "  The  Genesis  of 
Species." 

Angelic  Doctor  on  Creation  of  Adam. 

The  Angelic  Doctor,  in  accord  with  the  tradi- 
tional teaching  of  the  Fathers,  holds  that  the  body  of 
the  first  man  was  immediately  and  directly  formed 
by   God  Himself,  but  he  admits  the  possibility  of 

the  rational  soul  being  subsequently  infused.  Great  was  the 
outcry  against  such  a  view,  but  I  forwarded  my  little  book  to  the 
Supreme  Pontiff,  and  thereupon  Pius  IX  benignantly  granted 
me  a  doctor's  hat,  which  the  late  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  West- 
minster bestowed  on  me  at  a  public  function."  The  Nineteenth 
Century,  Feb.,  1893,  p.  327. 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  355 

angelic  intervention  in  its  formation  and  preparation 
for  the  reception  of  its  informing  principle,  the 
rational  soul.'  According  to  this  view  God  created 
absolutely,  ex  nihilo,  the  human  soul,  but  delegated 
to  His  creatures,  the  angels,  the  formation,  or  at 
least  the  formation  in  part,  aliquod  viinisteriiwi,  of 
man's  body.  It  is  manifest,  however,  that  if  God 
could  have  formed  the  body  of  Adam  through  the 
agency  of  angels.  He  could  have  communicated  the 
same  power  to  other  agencies,  if  He  had  so  willed. 
Instead,  for  instance,  of  delegating  angels  to  form 
the  body  of  the  common  father  of  mankind,  He 
could,  we  may  believe,  have  given  to  matter  the 
power  of  evolving  itself,  under  the  action  of  the 
Divine  administration,  into  all  the  forms  of  life 
which  we  now  behold,  including  the  body  of  man. 
The  product  of  such  an  Evolution  would  not  be  a 
rational  animal,  as  man  is,  but  an  irrational  one  ;  the 
highest  and  noblest  representative  of  the  brute  crea- 
tion, but,  nevertheless,  only  a  brute. 

Such  an  irfational  animal,  the  result  of  long  years 
of  development,  and  the  product  of  the  play,  during 
untold  aeons,  of  evolutionary  forces  on  lower  forms 
of  life,  such  a  substratum  it  was,  according  to  Miv- 
art's  theory,  into  which  the  Creator  breathed  the 
breath  of  life  and  man  forthwith  "  became  a  living 
soul."     According  to  this  theory,  then,  God  created 

^"Quia  igitur  corpus  humanum  numquam  formatum  fuerat, 
cujus  virtu te  per  viam  generationis  aliud  simile  in  specie  formare- 
tur,necesse  fuit,  quodprimum  corpus  hominis  immediate  formare- 
tur  a  Deo.  .  .  .  Potuit  tamen  fieri  ut  aliquod  ministerium  in 
formatione  corporis  primi  hominis  angeli  exhiberent,  sicut  exhi- 
bebunt  in  ultima  resurrectione,  pulveres  coUigendo."  "Sum. 
Theol.,"  pars  i™*,  quxst.  91,  art.  2. 


356  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  D OGMA . 

the  soul  of  man  directly,  and  his  body  indirectly  or 
by  the  operation  of  secondary  causes.  In  both 
cases,  however,  He  is  really  and  truly  the  Creator, 
and  there  is  nothing  in  the  theory  which  is  in  any 
wise  derogatory  to  His  power  or  wisdom.  We 
simply  admit  for  the  body  of  man  what  we  have 
seen  may  readily  be  admitted  for  the  rest  of  the  ani- 
mate world — creation  through  the  agency  of  second- 
ary causes,  instead  of  direct  and  immediate  creation 
without  the  concurrence  of  any  of  God's  creatures. 

This  view  of  the  derivative  origin  of  Adam's 
body,  is  also  quite  in  harmony  with  other  principles 
laid  down  both  by  the  great  Bishop  of  Hippo  and 
the  Angel  of  the  Schools.  For  they  both  taught, 
that  in  the  beginning  God  created,  in  the  absolute 
and  primary  sense  of  creation,  only  corporeal  ele- 
ments and  spiritual  substances.  Plants,  animals  and 
even  man,  did  not  exist  as  we  know  them — in  natura 
propria  ;  but  only  potentially,  receiving  their  full  de- 
velopment afterwards  — per  volumina  sceculorum. 
They  existed  only  in  what  the  saint  calls  seminal 
reasons — in  rationibus  seminalibus ;^  and  the  produc- 
tion of  the  manifold  forms  of  life,  man  included, 
which  now  adorn  our  planet,  was  the  work  of  Evolu- 
tion, viz.,  secondary  causes  acting   under  the  con- 


^  "  Et  ideo  concedo."  says  St.  Thomas  ..."  quod  ra- 
tiones  seminales  dicuntur  virtutes  activae  completje  in  natura 
cum  propriis  passivis,  ut  calor  et  frigus,  et  forma  ignis,  et  virtus 
solis,  et  hujusmodi  ;  et  dicuntur  seminales  non  propter  esse  im- 
perfectum  quod  habeant,  sicut  virtus  formativa  in  semine,  sed 
quia  rerum  individuis  primo  creatis,  hujusmodi  virtutes  collatae 
sunt  per  opera  sex  dierum,  ut  ex  eis  quasi  ex  quibusdam  semini- 
bus  producerentur  et  multiplicarentur  res  naturales."  "  Sentent.," 
lib.  II,  dist.  i8,  qusest.  i"",  art.  2. 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  357 

tinued  and  uninterrupted  guidance  of   the  Divine 
administration.' 

Again,  this  view  of  the  origin  of  man's  body  may 
be  regarded  as  conformable  with  the  teachings  of  the 
Angelic  Doctor  from  another  standpoint.  As  all 
who  are  familiar  with  the  scholastic  philosophy  are 
aware,  St.  Thomas,  in  common  with  the  School 
generally,  teaches  that  there  is  a  true  development 
in  animated  nature,  a  veritable  ascent  of  life  from 
lower  to  higher  forms.  There  is,  he  tells  us,  a  suc- 
cession of  vital  principles  in  the  organic  world,  supe- 
rior principles  superseding  those  which  are  inferior. 
In  the  development  of  man,  as  in  that  of  the  lower 
animals,  there  is  an  ascending  succession  of  substan- 
tial forms,  by  means  of  which  that  which  is  destined 
to  become  a  human  body,  acquires  a  proper  struc- 
ture and  receives  the  necessary  disposition  for  be- 
coming  the  receptacle  of  a  rational  soul.  First  the 
embryo  is  animated  by  the  vegetable  soul ;  subse- 
quently  it  is  informed  by  a  more  perfect  soul,  which 
is  both  nutritive  and  sensitive.  This  is  what  is 
known  as  the  animal  soul.  In  man  this  is  succeeded 
by  the  rational  soul — ab  extrinseco  immissa,  says  the 
Angelic  Doctor — a  soul  specially  created  and  infused 
into  the  human  body  by  God  Himself." 

^ "  Augustinus  enim  vult,"  writes  the  Angelic  Doctor,  "  in  ipso 
creationis  principio.quasdam  res  per  species  suas  distinctasfuisse 
in  natura  propria,  ut  elementa,  corpora  coelestia  et  substantias 
spirituales;  alia  vero  in  rationibus  seminalibus  tantum,  ut  ani- 
malia,  plantas  et  homines,  quje  omnia  postmodum  in  naturis 
propriis  producta  sunt."  "Sentent,"  lib.  II,  dist.  12*,  quaest. 
i""^,  art.  II, 

*The  following  passage  is  sufficient  to  exhibit  the  Angelic 
Doctor's  teaching  in  this  matter  ;  "  Quanto  igitur  aliqua  forma 


358         •        EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

From  what  precedes,  it  is  evinced  that  the 
Evolution  of  the  body  of  man,  according  to 
Mivart's  view,  and  the  subsequent  infusion  into 
this  body,  by  God,  of  a  rational  soul,  is  not  neces- 
sarily antagonistic  to  the  teachings  of  St.  Thomas. 
The  theory  may,  indeed,  encounter  certain  grave 
difficulties  in  the  domains  of  metaphysics  and 
Biblical  exegesis,  but  I  do  not  think  it  can  abso- 
lutely be  asserted  that  such  diflficulties  are  insup- 
erable.' 

At  all  events,  whatever  one  may  be  disposed 
to  think  of  the  theory,  it  is  well  always  to  bear 
in  mind  that  it  has  never  been  condemned  by 
the  Church,  although  it  has  been  publicly  dis- 
cussed and  defended  for  full  five-and-twenty  years. 
If  it  were  as  dangerous  as  some  have  imagined, 
and,  still  more,  if  it  were  heretical,  as  others  have 
thought,  it  is  most  probable  that  the  "  Genesis  of 
Species  "  would  have  been  put  on  the  Index  long 
ago. 


est  nobilior  et  magis  distans  a  forma  elementi,  tanto  oportet  esse 
pluras  formas  intermedias,  quibus  gradatim  ad  formam  ultitnam 
veniatur  et,  per  consequens,  plures  generationes  medias;  et  ideo 
in  generatione  animalis  et  hominis,  in  quibus  est  forma  perfect- 
issima,  sunt  plurimae  formie  et  generationes  intermediae,  et  per 
consequens  corruptiones,  quia  generatio  unius  est  corruptio  alte- 
rius.  Anima  igitur  vegetabilis,  quae  primo  inest,  cum  embryo 
vivit  vita  plant£e,  corrumpitur,  et  succedit  anima  perfectior,  quae 
est  nutritiva  et  sensitiva  simul,  et  tunc  embryo  vivit  vita  ani- 
malis ;  haec  autem  corrupta,  succedit  anima  rationalis  ab  extrin- 
seco  immissa,  licet  precedentes  fuerint  virtute  seminis."  "  Con- 
tra Gentiles,"  Lib.  II,  cap.  lxxxix. 

^  For  a  consideration  of  some  of  the  difficulties  alluded  to, 
consult  PadreMir's"LaCreacion,"cap.  XL,  Dierck's"L'Homme- 
Singe,"  pp.  91  et  seq.,  and  Cardinal  Gonzales'  "  La  Biblia  y  la 
Ciencia,"  torn.  I,  cap.  xi,  art.  iii,  iv  and  v. 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  359 


Views  of  Cardinal  Gonzales. 

The  late  Cardinal  Gonzales,  that  profound  Thom- 
ist  and  man  of  science,  whose  untimely  death 
the  Catholic  world  will  mourn  for  a  long  time  to 
come,  who  has  treated  so  luminously  the  question  of 
Evolution  from  the  point  of  view  of  Scripture, 
patristic  theology  and  scholastic  philosophy,  has 
suggested  a  modification  of  Mivart's  theory,  which, 
he  thinks,  would  make  it  more  acceptable  to  theolo- 
gians than  it  is  as  it  now  stands.  If,  he  says,  with- 
out however  committing  himself  to  the  opinion 
expressed  —  if  instead  of  affirming,  as  the  English 
biologist  does,  that  the  body  of  Adam  was  nothing 
more  than  a  fully-developed  ape,  into  which  God  in- 
fused a  rational  soul,  we  admit  that  the  body  of  the 
first  man  was  partly  the  product  of  Evolution  from 
some  lower  animal  form,  and  partly  the  direct  work 
of  God  Himself,  we  may  thereby,  he  opines,  elimi- 
nate many  of  the  objections  urged  against  the  theory 
as  formulated  by  its  author.  According  to  this  modi- 
fied view,  the  body  of  man  was  developed  from  the 
inferior  forms  of  life  only  until  a  certain  point,  but 
in  this  condition  it  was  not  prepared  to  be  endowed 
by  an  intelligent  soul.  This  imperfect  body,  how- 
ever, this  unfinished  product  of  evolutionary  forces, 
is  taken  in  hand  by  the  Almighty,  who  perfects  what 
was  begun,  gives  it  the  .finishing  touches,  as  it  were, 
and  renders  it  a  fit  habitation,  which  it  was  not  pre- 
viously, for  a  soul  which  was  to  be  made  to  His  own 
image  and  likeness,  a  soul  which  was  to  be  dowered 


360  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

with  the  noble  attributes  of  reason,  liberty  and  im- 
mortality. 

Speaking  for  myself,  I  must  confess  that  such  a 
modification  appears  unnecessary,  and,  in  the  light 
of  the  teachings  of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Thomas,  it 
seems  that  one  may  as  readily  accept  the  theory  as 
proposed  by  Mivart,  as  the  restricted  form  of  it 
which  the  distinguished  cardinal  suggests.  If  we 
are  to  admit  the  action  of  Evolution  at  all,  in  the 
production  of  Adam's  body,  it  appears  more  consist- 
ent to  admit  that  it  was  competent  to  complete  the 
work  which  it  began,  than  to  be  forced  to  acknowledge 
that  it  was  obliged  to  leave  off  its  task  when  only 
partially  completed.  For,  whether  we  assert  that 
the  body  of  the  first  man  was  entirely,  or  only  par- 
tially, the  result  of  evolutionary  action,  it  was,  in 
both  cases,  according  to  the  principles  we  have 
adopted,  the  work,  and  ultimately  the  sole  work,  of 
Almighty  God.  According  to  Mivart's  view,  the 
body  of  Adam  was  formed  by  God  solely  through 
the  agency  of  secondary  causes ;  according  to  Gon- 
zales it  was  formed  by  God  partly  through  the  con- 
currence of  secondary  causes,  and  partly  by  His 
direct  and  immediate  action.  If  we  are  to  ad- 
mit that  Evolution  had  anything  whatever  to  do 
with  man's  corporeal  frame,  it  seems  more  logical  to 
admit  that  it  finished  the  work  which  it  began, 
always,  of  course,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Divine 
administration,  than  to  suppose  that  God  gave  to 
His  secondary  agents  a  work  which  they  might  com- 
mence, indeed,  but  which,  by  reason  of  limitations 
imposed  on  them,  they  were  unable  to  complete. 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  361 

One  cannot  help  thinking,  when  one  seriously 
reflects  on  the  matter,  that  the  learned  Cardinal  — 
and  what  is  said  of  him  may  be  predicated  of  crea- 
tionists generally  —  unconsciously  favors  the  very 
notion  he  wishes  to  oppose.  He  wishes,  above  all 
things,  to  safeguard  the  creative  act  and  bring  out 
in  bold  relief  the  Divine  attributes  of  wisdom  and 
omnipotence,  but  he  unwittinglj',  it  would  seem, 
makes  greater  demands  than  his  case  requires.  In- 
deed,  it  strikes  me  that  those  who  hold  the  special 
creation  theory  as  to  the  body  of  the  father  of  our 
race,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  believers  in  the 
special  creation  of  the  forms  of  life  below  man, 
constitute  themselves  defenders  of  the  very  theory 
which  the  great  St.  Athanasius,  full  fifteen  centuries 
ago,  felt  called  upon  to  criticise  adversely.  Argu- 
ing  against  the  anthropomorphic  views  which  the 
heathen  entertained  of  the  Almighty,  he  contended 
that  the  God  of  the  Christians  is  a  Creator,  not  a 
carpenter  —  KTf'o-TijT  oo  rexvizTj':.  In  accord  with  the  il- 
lustrious Alexandrian  Doctor's  view,  it  has  been 
truthfully  observed  that :  "  The  Great  Architect 
theory  in  theology  is  the  analogue  of  the  emboite- 
ment  theory  in  science.  Both  were  invented  when 
mechanism  dominated  thought,  and  we  have  out- 
grown both." 

In  commenting  on  Mivart's  theory,  the  erudite 
Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Seville  manifests  his  charac- 
teristic liberality  and  breadth  of  view,  strikingly  re- 
sembling in  this  respect  his  immortal  master,  the 
Angel  of  the  School.  "As  the  question  stands  at 
present,"  he  says,  "  we  have  no  right  to  reprobate  or 


362  E  VOL  UTION  AND  DOGMA . 

reject,  as  contrary  to  Christian  faith,  or  as  contrary 
to  revealed  truth,  the  hypothesis  of  Mivart ;  the 
hypothesis,  namely,  which  admits  the  possibility 
that  the  body  of  the  first  man,  the  organism  which 
received  the  rational  soul  created  by  God  and  in- 
fused into  Adam,  was  a  body  which  received  an 
organization  suitable  for  the  reception  of  the  human 
soul,  not  directly  and  immediately  from  the  hand  of 
God,  but  in  virtue  of  the  action  of  other  antecedent 
animated  beings,  more  or  less  perfect  and  similar  to 
man  in  bodily  structure."  '  Elsewhere  he  declares: 
"  I  should  not  permit  myself  to  censure  the  opinion 
of  the  English  theologian  so  long  as  it  is  respected, 
or  at  least  tolerated,  by  the  Church,  the  sole  judge 
competent  to  fix  and  qualify  theologico-dogmatic 
propositions,  and  decide  regarding  their  compatibil- 
ity or  incompatibility  with  Holy  Scripture."  " 

•  "  La  Biblia  y  la  Ciencia,"  torn,  i,  pp.  549-550. 

^ "  No  sere  yo  quien  se  permita  calificar  con  nota  alguna 
desfavorable  la  opinion  del  teologo  Ingles,  mientras  que  sea  respet- 
ada,  6  tolerada  al  menos,  por  la  Iglesia,  unico  juez  competente 
para  fijar  y  calificar  las  aserciones  teologico-dogmaticas,  y  para 
decidir  acerca  de  su  compatibilidad  e  incompatibilidad  con  la 
Sagrada  Escritura."  Op.  cit.,  torn,  i,  pp.  542-543.  Cf.,  also,  the 
interesting  brochure  of  Fr.  Dierck's,  S.  J.,  entitled  "  L'Homme- 
Singe  et  Les  Precurseurs  d'Adam  en  face  de  la  Science  et  de  la 
Theologie."  The  accomplished  Jesuit  discusses  the  question  at 
issue  in  a  most  temperate  and  scholarly  manner,  and  does 
ample  justice  to  the  claims  of  science  as  well  as  to  those  of 
Dogma. 

Mgr.  d'Hulst,  the  distinguished  rector  of  the  Catholic  Uni- 
versity of  Paris,  is  of  opinion  "que  I'orthodoxie  rigoureuse  n'im- 
pose  d'autre  limite  aux  hypotheses  transformistes,  que  le  dogme 
de  la  creation  immediate  de  chaque  ame  humaine  par  Dieu  ; 
hors  de  la,  s'ily  a  des  temerites  dans  ces  hypotheses,  c'est  par 
des  arguments  scientifiques  qu'il  faut  les  combattre."  Compte 
Rendu  du  Congres  Scientifique  International  des  Catholiques, 
tenu  a  Parts,  1891,  Section  d'Anthropologie,  p.  213.  In  a  care- 
fully prepared  paper,  read  before   the   International   Catholic 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  36.T 

Opinions  of  Other  Writers. 

Not  to  mention  a  number  of  other  Catholic 
writers  who  might  be  named,  Mivart's  theory  has  an 
able  defender  in  the  learned  French  Dominican, 
P^re  Leroy.  His  thesis  in  its  simplest  form  may  be 
expressed  as  follows :  It  is  probable  that  God,  in 
creating  Adam,  did  not  make  use  directly  of  the  slime 
of  the  earth,  but  that,  by  the  sole  infusion  of  a 
rational  soul,  he  transformed  into  man  an  anthro- 
pomorphic animal  which  had  been  brought  by  Evo- 
lution, under  the  guidance  of  Divine  Providence,  to 
a  point  approximating  humanity  as  nearly  as  possible. 
The  argument  of  the  author  is  well  sustained,  and 
his  work,  entitled  "  L'Evolution  Restreinte  des  Es- 
peces  Organiques,"  besides  having  the  imprimatur 
of  the  provincial  and  censor  librorum  of  his  order, 
has  the  cordial  indorsement  of  such  distinguished 
authorities  as  the  eminent  Catholic  geologist,  Prof. 
A.  de  Lapparent,  and  the  well-known  theologian, 
P^re  Monsabr^.  The  latter,  in  a  letter  to  P^re 
Leroy,   printed    in  the    beginning   of    the  volume, 


Scientific  Congress  at  Brussels,  in  1894,  Canon  Duilhe  de  Saint- 
Projet,  the  noted  French  apologist,  in  referring  to  the  theory  of 
the  animal  origin  of  man,  remarked,  with  enlightened  breadth  of 
view,  "  Ici,  comme  pour  toutes  les  opinions  libres  ou  tolerees  au 
point  de  vue  de  I'orthodoxie,  I'figlise  est  le  seul  juge."  See 
Compte  Rendu,  Section  d'Anthropologie,  p.  10. 

As  illustrative  of  the  attitude  of  the  anthropological  section 
of  the  same  congress,  the  following  resolution,  adopted  by 
acclamation,  is  significant :  "  La  section  d'anthropologie  du 
troisieme  Congres  Scientifique  des  Catholiques  de  Bruxelles, 
loue  et  encourage  les  etudes  de  ceux  qui,  sous  le  supreme  magis- 
tere  de  I'Eglise  enseignante,  s'adonnenta  rechercher  le  role  que 
revolution  pent  avoir  eu  dans  le  concert  des  causes  secondes 
qui  ont  amene  le  monde  physique  a  I'^tat  actuel."  Compte 
Rendu,  p.  298. 


364  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

writes :  "  One  may  not  be  of  your  opinion,  because 
there  is  question  of  but  an  opinion  only,  but  I  do  not 
see  in  what  anyone  can  find  fault  with  your  ortho- 
doxy. Science  progresses  and  its  discoveries  permit 
us  to  see  better  every  day  the  grandiose  unity  of 
creation.  Whatever  be  its  progress,  it  will  never 
efface  from  the  first  pages  of  the  Bible  these  two 
truths:  all  creation  is  the  work  of  God  ;  and  there  are 
in  this  creation  acts  of  such  transcendence  that  they 
can  be  attributed  only  to  the  immediate  and  effect- 
ive intervention  of  an  Infinite  Power." 

From  the  foregoing  it  is  evident,  that  whatever 
may  be  the  final  proved  verdict  of  science  in  respect 
of  man's  body,  it  cannot  be  at  variance  with  Cath- 
olic Dogma.  Granting  that  future  researches  in 
paleontology,  anthropology  and  biology,  shall  dem- 
onstrate beyond  doubt  that  man  is  genetically 
related  to  the  inferior  animals,  and  we  have  seen 
how  far  scientists  are  from  such  a  demonstration, 
there  will  not  be,  even  in  such  an  improbable  event, 
the  slightest  ground  for  imagining  that  then,  at  last, 
the  conclusions  of  science  are  hopelessly  at  variance 
with  the  declarations  of  the  sacred  text,  or  the 
authorized  teachings  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  All 
that  would  logically  follow  from  the  demonstration 
of  the  animal  origin  of  man,  would  be  a  modification 
of  the  traditional  view  regarding  the  origin  of  the 
body  of  our  first  ancestor.  We  should  be  obliged 
to  revise  the  interpretation  that  has  usually  been 
given  to  the  words  of  Scripture  which  refer  to  the 
formation  of  Adam's  body,  and  read  these  words  in 
the  sense  which  Evolution  demands,  a  sense  which, 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  365 

as  we  have  seen,  may  be  attributed  to  the  words  of 
the  inspired  record,  without  either  distorting  the 
meaning  of  terms  or  in  any  way  doing  violence  to 
the  text. ' 


*  As  illustrations  of  the  extravagant  notions,  which  even 
eminent  men  have  entertained  respecting  the  origin  of  our  first 
ancestors,  the  following  paragraphs  are  pertinent. 

Many  of  the  medijeval  rabbins,  following  the  teachings  of 
the  cosmogonies  of  India,  Persia,  Chaldea,  Phoenicia,  and  the 
account  of  primitive  man  as  given  by  Plato  in  his  "  Symposium," 
were  believers  in  the  androgynous  character  of  the  common 
father  of  humanity.  The  philosopher,  Maimonides,  expressly 
declares :  "Adam  et  Eva  creati  sunt  sicut  unus,  et  tergis  vel 
dorso  conjunct!.  Postea  vero  a  Deo  divisi  sunt,  qui  dimidiam 
partem  accepit,  et  fuit  Eva,  et  adducta  est  ad  ipsum." 

The  eminent  French  naturalist,  Isidore  Geoffroy  Saint- 
Hilaire,  was  not  unfavorable  to  this  view.  "On  a  cherch^,"  he 
writes,  "a  expliquer  I'hermaphrodisme  dans  I'espece  humaine, 
par  la  reunion  de  deux  sexes  chez  notre  premier  pere ;  reunion 
formellement  enonce  dans  ce  verset  de  la  Genese,  cap.  i,  ver.  27. 
'  Et  creavit  Deus  ad  imaginem  suam,  ad  imaginem  Dei  creavit 
ilium,  masculum  et  feminam  creavit  eos.'  On  pourrait  sans 
doute  trouver  dans  ce  verset,  ^  plusieurs  ^gards  remarquable,  un 
embleme  de  I'etat  primitivement  indecis,  ou,  si  I'on  veut,  herma- 
phroditique,  de  I'appareil  sexuel,  comme  on  a  trouv^  dans 
V^uvre  des  six  jours  ce\u\Au  developpement  progressifdela  vie 
vegetale  et  animale,  et  de  I'apparition  tardive  de  I'homme  a  la 
surface  du  globe."  "  Histoire  G^ndrale  et  Particuliere  des  Ano- 
malies de  rOrganization  chez  I'Homme,"  vol.  II,  p.  53. 

Among  modern  scholars  who  have  inclined  to  the  primitive 
androgynous  condition  of  Adam,  and  the  subsequent  formation 
of  Eve  by  separation  or  division,  is  the  distinguished  orientalist, 
Francois  Lenormant.  In  his  "Origines  de  I'Histoire  d'apres  la 
Bible,"  pp.  54  and  55,  he  expresses  himself  as  follows  :  "  D'apr&s 
notre  version  vulgate,  d' accord  en  ceci  avec  la  version  grecque 
des  Septante,  nous  avons  1'  habitude  d'  admettre  que,  selon  la 
Bible,  la  premiere  femme  fut  formee  d'  une  cote  arrachee  au  fianc 
d  'Adam.  Cependant,  on  doit  s^rieusement  douter  de  I'exacti- 
tude  de  cette  interpretation.  Le  mot  employe  ici,  signifie 
dans  tous  les  autres  passages  bibliques  ou  on  le  rencontre, 
'cote'  et  non  cote.  La  traduction  philologiquement  la  plus 
probable  du  texte  de  la  Genese  est  done  celle  que  nous  avons 
adoptee  plus  haul.  'Yaveh  Elohim  lit  tomber  un  profond 
sonimeil  sur  I'homme,  et  celui-ci  s'endormit ;  il  prit  un  de  ses 
cotes  et  il  en  ferma  la  place  avec  la  chair.  Et  Yaveh  Elohim 
forma  le  cote  qu'il  avail  pris  a  I'homme  en  femme.  Et  I'homme 


366  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Interpretation  Not  Revelation. 

In  the  consideration  of  questions  like  the  present, 
we  must  never,  be  it  remembered,  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  interpretation  is  not  revelation  ;  neither  is 
revelation  interpretation.  Superficial  readers  are  but 
too  frequently  misled  into  believing,  that  the  decla- 
rations of  the  Bible  must  necessarily  bear  the  mean- 
ing which  commentators  have  fancied  they  should 
have,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  real  sense  is  often 
entirely  different,  if  not,  indeed,  quite  the  contrary. 
The  opinions  of  men  may  change,  and  are,  of  a  truth, 
perpetually  changing,  but  the  declarations  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  are  ever  infallible  and  immutable.  We 
can  never  too  carefully  discriminate  between  the 
truth  of  God's  revelation  to  His  creatures,  and  the 
truth  of  our  apprehension  of  His  revelation.  In 
the  beginning  we  may  have  but  occasional  glimpses 
and  faint  adumbrations  of  the  truth,  and  it  often 
happens  that  we  come  into  possession  of  the  whole 
truth,  in  all  its  significance  and  beauty  and  gran- 
deur, only  after  the  lapse  of  long  ages  of  persistent 
effort  and  tireless  investigation.  Hence  the  anthro- 
pomorphic and  anthropocentric  views  entertained  by 
the  early  interpreters  of  Scripture  respecting  divers 
questions  pertaining  to  the  Deity,  and  the  creatures 
which  are  the  work  of  His  omnipotence.  Time  and 
reflection  and  research  show  that  such  views  are  ill- 
founded,  and  substitute  in  their  place  a  nobler  con- 
ception of  the  Creator,  and  one  that  is,  at  the  same 

dit:  Cette  fois  celle-ci  est  I'os  de  mes  os  et  la  chair  de  ma 
chair;  celle-ci  sera  appelee  isschah  (femnie),  parce  qu'elle  a  etd 
prise  du  isch  (I'homme).'" 


THE  SIMIAN  ORIGIN  OF  MAN.  367 

time,  more  in  accordance  with  the  teachings  of  na- 
ture and  the  spirit  of  Divine  revelation. 

It  is  possible,  although  highly  improbable,  that 
the  evolutionary  theory  of  the  origin  of  Adam's  cor- 
poreal frame  is  one  of  such  cases.  And  it  is  possible, 
too,  that  our  successors  in  the  enjoyment  of  light 
that  is  not  vouchsafed  to  ourselves,  may  be  willing 
to  admit  as  a  scientific  doctrine,  what  we,  at  present, 
are  not  justified  in  considering  as  more  than  a  fanci- 
ful and  unwarranted  hypothesis.  Nevertheless,  be 
this  as  it  may,  we  must  not  forget  what  has  already 
been  adverted  to  when  discussing  the  derivative  ori- 
gin of  animals  and  plants,  viz.,  that  Evolution  is 
not  a  theory  of  creation  or  cause,  but  one  of  order 
and  method ;  a  modus  creandi  which  the  Deity  was 
pleased  to  adopt.  Of  the  origin  of  matter,  of  life, 
of  spirit,  science,  as  such,  can  give  us  no  information. 
As  to  the  origin  of  matter.  Evolution,  as  a  doc- 
trine, is  confessedly  mute.  "  Of  the  origin  of  life  it 
does  not  profess  to  have  the  slightest  knowledge  ;  of 
the  character  of  the  in-dwelling  force,  which  out  of 
the  one  original  cell  develops  the  marvelous  diversity 
of  architecture  in  the  individual  beings,  of  the 
variations  which  gave  a  start  to  the  process  of  nat- 
ural selection  in  the  differentiation  of  species,  it  can 
tell  us  nothing;  of  the  marvelous  adaptation  of  the 
external  conditions  of  the  inorganic  world  to  the 
growth  and  differentiation  of  organic  life,  it  gives  no 
account ;  the  unity  of  all  this  infinite  variety  of  de- 
velopment in  one  great  order,  having  a  continual 
progress  towards  a  higher  perfection,  it  sees  clearly, 
but  it  cannot  find  a  cause.     No  wonder  that,  as  we 


368  E  VOL  UTtON  AND  DOGMA. 

have  seen,  those  who  study  it  most  deeply  and  philo- 
sophically are  driven  to  go  behind  it  in  the  search 
after  a  true  cause.  .  .  .  For  clearly  the  develop- 
ment under  fixed  laws  and  gradual  process  of  the 
organic  world,  no  more  prevents  the  original  creative 
and  directive  Idea  from  being  the  true  Cause  of  all, 
than  the  passing  of  the  individual  being  through  all 
stages  of  embryonic  existence  from  the  simple  cell, 
makes  it  less  the  creature  of  the  Supreme  Hand. 
That  the  archetypal  idea  of  the  Creative  Mind  may 
fulfill  itself  equally,  whether  it  act  directly  or 
through  intermediate  gradations,  we  can  see  clearly 
not  only  by  abstract  theory  but  by  experience  of  our 
own  '  creations.'  " ' 


'"  Some  Lights  of  Science  on  the  Faith,"  bj  Alfred  Barrj, 
D.D.,  D.C.L.,  pp.  Ill  and  112. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

TELEOLOGY,  OLD  AND   NEW. 
The  Doctrine  of  Final  Causes. 

FROM  what  precedes  it  is  evident,  that  the  most 
that  Evolution  can  do  is  to  substitute  deriva- 
tive for  special  creation,  a  substitution  which,  as 
we  have  learned,  can  be  admitted  without  any  dero- 
gation whatever  to  either  faith  or  Dogma.  But 
there  is  yet  another  objection  against  Evolution, 
which,  by  some  minds,  is  regarded  as  more  serious 
than  any  of  the  difficulties,  heretofore  considered, 
of  either  philosophy  or  theology.  This  objection, 
briefly  stated,  is  that  Evolution  destroys  entirely 
the  argument  from  design  in  nature,  and  abolishes 
teleology,  or  the  doctrine  of  final  causes.  In  the 
case  of  Darwin,  for  instance,  as  we  learn  from  his 
"  Life  and  Letters,"  he  had  no  difficulty  in  accept- 
ing derivative  in  lieu  of  special  creation,  but  when 
it  came  to  reconciling  natural  selection  and  Evolu- 
tion with  teleology,  as  taught  by  Paley,  he  felt  that 
his  chief  argument  for  believing  in  God  had  been 
wrested  from  him  entirely. 

So  persuaded,  indeed,  have  many  naturalists  and 
philosophers  been,  if  we  are  to  believe  their  own 
words,  that  Darwinism  and  Evolution  have  given 
the   deathblow   to   teleology,    that    they   forthwith 

E.-a4  (369) 


370  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

dismiss  all  arguments  based  on  design  and  final 
causes  as  utterly  worthless.  And,  of  those  who  are 
not  in  sympathy  with  Christianity,  we  find  not  a  few 
who  are  unable  to  conceal  their  exultation  over  what 
they  regard  as  the  inglorious  and  complete  discom- 
fiture of  the  theologians.  Thus  Haeckel,  in  his 
"History  of  Creation,"  writes:  "I  maintain  with 
regard  to  the  much-talked-of  *  purpose  in  nature,* 
that  it  really  has  no  existence  but  for  those  persons 
who  observe  phenomena  in  animals  and  plants  in 
the  most  superficial  manner."  '  Biichner  boasts  that 
"  modern  investigation  and  natural  philosophy  have 
shaken  themselves  tolerably  free  from  these  empty 
and  superficial  conceptions  of  design,  and  leave  such 
childish  views  to  those  who  are  incapable  of  liberat- 
ing themselves  from  such  anthropomorphic  ideas, 
which  unfortunately  still  obtain  in  school  and  church 
to  the  detriment  of  truth  and  science."  * 

It  were  easy  to  multiply  similar  quotations,  but 
the  two  just  given  are  quite  sufficient  for  our  present 
purpose.  Judging  from  their  public  utterances,  as 
well  as  from  their  well-known  private  opinions,  there 
is  no  mistaking  the  animus  of  these  soi-disant  expo- 
nents of  modern  thought.  If  we  are  to  take  them 
at  their  own  words,  they  seem  to  be  as  eager,  if  not 
more  eager,  for  the  extirpation  of  Dogma  and  all 
forms  of  religious  belief,  as  they  are  for  the  advance- 
ment of  what  they  denominate  "  science." 

'  Vol.  I,  p.  19,  Eng.  trans.  In  his  "  Generelle  Morpholo- 
gic," vol.  I,  p.  160,  he  asserts:  "  Wir  erblicken  darin  (in  the 
Darwinian  theory)  den  definitiven  Tod  aller  teleologischen  und 
vitalistischen  Beurtheilung  der  Organismen." 

*  "Force  and  Matter,"  p.  21S. 


TELEOLOGT,  OLD  AND  NEW.  371 


A  Newer  Teleologfy. 

It  would  be  a  grave  mistake,  however,  to  think 
that  Hasckel  and  Biichner  truthfully  reflect  the  opin- 
ions of  scientists  generally,  or  that  the  large  body  of 
naturalists  are  at  one  with  them  in  proclaiming  that 
the  argument  from  design  in  nature  is  no  longer  ten- 
able, or  that  Evolution  and  teleology  are  wholly  in- 
compatible. So  far,  indeed,  is  this  from  being  the 
case,  that  the  most  philosophical  of  contemporary 
naturalists,  those  who  are  most  competent  to  inter- 
pret the  facts  and  phenomena  of  nature  and  to  draw 
legitimate  conclusions  from  the  facts  observed,  are 
almost  unanimous  in  declaring  that  the  teleological 
argument,  not  only  is  not  weakened,  much  less  de- 
stroyed, but  that  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  illustrated 
and  corroborated  in  the  most  remarkable  and  unex- 
pected manner.  And  strange  as  it  may  appear,  the 
very  one  who,  according  to  Haeckel,  Biichner,  Vogt, 
G.  H.  Lewes  and  others  whose  anti-theological  ani- 
mus is  so  marked  as  to  require  no  comment,  was 
supposed  to  have  banished  forever  from  science  and 
theology,  not  only  design  and  purpose  but  all  final 
causes  whatsoever,  is  the  very  one  who,  above  all 
others,  has  put  teleology  on  a  firmer  and  a  nobler 
basis  than  it  ever  occupied  before.  We  have  no 
longer,  it  is  true,  the  argument  as  it  was  presented 
by  Paley,  and  developed  by  Chalmers  and  the  au- 
thors of  the  Bridgewater  Treatises,  but  we  have  in  its 
stead  one  that  is  grander,  more  comprehensive,  more 
effective  and  more  conclusive. 


872  EVOLUTION  A ND  D O GMA . 

Professor  Asa  Gray,  admittedly  one  of  the  ablest 
botanists  of  the  century,  and  to  the  day  of  his  death 
a  strenuous  and  consistent  advocate  of  the  theory  of 
Evolution,  thus  expresses  himself  when  speaking  of 
the  work  of  Charles  Darwin :  "  Let  us  recognize 
Darwin's  great  service  to  natural  science  in  bringing 
back  to  it  teleology  ;  so  that  instead  of  morphology 
versus  teleology,  we  shall  have  morphology  wedded 
to  teleology."  '  In  another  place  he  speaks  of  "  the 
great  gain  to  science  from  his  [Darwin's]  having 
brought  back  teleology  to  natural  history.  In  Dar- 
winism, usefulness  and  purpose  come  to  the  front 
again  as  working  principles  of  the  first  order ;  upon 
them,  indeed,  the  whole  system  rests.'"  "In  this 
system,"  he  continues,  "  the  forms  and  species  in  all 
their  variety  are  not  mere  ends  in  themselves,  but  the 
whole  a  series  of  means  and  ends,  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  which  we  may  obtain  higher  and  more  com- 
prehensive, and  perhaps  worthier,  as  well  as  more 
consistent  views,  of  design  in  nature,  than  heretofore." 
In  it  we  have  "  a  theory  that  accords  with,  if  it  does 
not  explain,  the  principal  facts,  and  a  teleology  that 
is  free  from  the  common  objections,"  for,  "  the  most 
puzzling  things  of  all  to  the  old  school  teleologists 
are  \he  principia  of  the  Darwinian.  "' 

Evolution  and  Teleology. 

In  the  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,"* 
edited  by  his  son,  we  read  :  "  One  of  the  greatest 

1 "  Darwiniana,"  p.  288. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  357. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  378. 

*  Vol.  II,  p.  430. 


TELEOLOGr,  OLD  AND  NEW.  373 

services  rendered  by  my  father  to  the  study  of  nat- 
ural history  is  the  revival  of  teleology.  The  evolu- 
tionist studies  the  purpose  or  meaning  of  organs 
with  the  zeal  of  the  older  teleology,  but  with  far 
wider  and  more  coherent  purpose.  He  has  the  in- 
vigorating knowledge  that  he  is  gaining,  not  isolated 
conceptions  of  the  economy  of  the  present,  but  a 
coherent  view  of  both  past  and  present.  And  even 
where  he  fails  to  discover  the  use  of  any  part,  he 
may,  by  a  knowledge  of  its  structure,  unravel  the 
history  of  the  past  vicissitudes  in  the  life  of  the 
species.  In  this  way  a  vigor  and  unity  is  given  to 
the  study  of  the  forms  of  organized  beings,  which 
before  it  lacked." ' 

'  According  to  the  Duke  of  Argyll :  "  The  theory  of  develop- 
ment is  not  only  consistent  with  teleological  explanations,  but 
it  is  founded  on  teleology  and  on  nothing  else.  It  sees  in  every- 
thing the  results  of  a  system  which  is  ever  acting  for  the  best, 
always  producing  something  more  perfect  or  more  beautiful  than 
before,  and  incessantly  eliminating  whatever  is  less  faulty  or  less 
perfectly  adapted  to  every  new  condition.  Prof.  Tyndall  him- 
self cannot  describe  this  system  without  using  the  most  in- 
tensely anthropopsychic  language.  '  The  continued  effort  of 
animated  nature,'  he  says  in  his  Belfast  address,  '  is  to  improve 
its  conditions  and  raise  itself  to  a  loftier  level.'"  "  The  Unity 
of  Nature,"  p.  171. 

Mr.  Alfred  Wallace,  who  shares  with  Darwin  the  honor  of 
having  introduced  to  the  world  the  theory  of  natural  selection, 
asks,  when  speaking  of  the  bearing  of  Evolution  on  the  doctrine 
of  design  :  "  Why  should  we  suppose  the  machine,  too  compli- 
cated to  have  been  designed  by  the  Creator,  so  complete  that  it 
would  necessarily  work  out  harmonious  results  .-'  The  theory 
of  '  continual  interference'  is  a  limitation  of  the  Creator's  power. 
It  assumes  that  He  could  not  work  by  pure  law  in  the  organic 
as  he  has  done  in  the  inorganic  world."  "  Natural  Selection," 
p.  280. 

Similar  language  is  employed  by  the  late  Prof  Richard 
Owen,  one  of  the  greatest  comparative  anatomists  of  the  age. 
He  was  a  firm  believer  not  only  in  the  "  ordained  becoming" 
of  new  species,  but  was  also  a  zealous  and  consistent  teleolo- 
gist. 


374  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

Prof.  Huxley,  who  loves  to  pose  as  an  agnostic, 
but  who  is  endowed  with  a  critical  acumen  that  is  pos- 
sessed by  neither  Biichner  nor  Haeckel,  affirms  that : 
"  The  most  remarkable  service  to  the  philosophy  of 
biology  rendered  by  Mr.  Darwin,  is  the  reconciliation 
of  teleology  and  morphology,  and  the  explanation 
of  the  facts  of  both,  which  his  views  offer.  The  tel- 
eology which  supposes  that  the  eye,  such  as  we  see 
it  in  man  or  one  of  the  higher  vertebrates,  was 
made  with  the  precise  structure  it  exhibits,  for  the 
purpose  of  enabling  the  animal  which  possesses  it  to 
see,  has  undoubtedly  received  its  death-blow.  Never- 
theless, it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  there  is  a 
wider  teleology  which  is  not  touched  by  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution,  but  is  actually  based  upon  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  Evolution." ' 

To  the  foregoing  testimonies,  and  others  of  like 
import  which  could  easily  be  adduced  in  any  number 
desired,  I  will  add  the  matured  opinion  of  the  dis- 
tinguished naturalist  and  keen  metaphysician,  whose 
name  has  already  figured  so  frequently  in  these 
pages,  St.  George  Mivart.  A  biologist  of  marked 
eminence,  an  evolutionist  of  pronounced  convictions, 
a  theologian  of  recognized  ability,  no  one  is  better 
qualified  to  express  a  judgment  regarding  the  bear- 
ings of  the  Evolution  theory  on  the  argument  from 
design  and  the  doctrine  of  final  causes.  "  A  careful 
study,"  he  tells  us,  "of  the  inter-relation  and  inter- 
dependencies  which  exist  between  the  various  orders 
of  creatures  inhabiting  this  planet,  shows  us  a  yet 
more  noteworthy  teleology — the  existence  of  whole 

'  "  Darwiniana,"  p.  no. 


TELEOLOGY,  OLD  AND  NEW.  375 

orders  of  such  creatures  being  directed  to  the  service 
of  other  orders,  in  various  degrees  of  subordination 
and  augmentation,  respectively.  This  study  reveals 
to  us,  as  a  fact,  the  enchainment  of  all  the- various 
orders  of  creatures  in  a  hierarchy  of  activities,  in 
harmony  with  what  we  might  expect  to  find  in  a 
world,  the  outcome  of  a  First  Cause  possessed  of  in- 
telligence and  will,  since  it  exhibits,  at  the  same 
time,  both  '  continuity  '  and  *  purpose.'  It  shows 
us,  indeed,  that  a  successively  increasing  fulfillment 
of  '  purpose  '  runs  through  the  irrational  creation 
up  to  man.  And  thus  the  study  of  final  causes  re- 
veals to  us  how  great  is  our  dignity,  and,  conse- 
quently, our  responsibility." ' 

Design  and  Purpose  in   Nature. 

The  quotations  just  made  from  some  of  the  most 
eminent  and  most  philosophical  of  modern  natural- 
ists, and  they  are  in  perfect  accord  with  the  senti- 
ments of  the  great  majority  of  contemporary  evolu- 
tionists, prove  that  true  votaries  of  science,  far  from 
denying  design  and  purpose  in  nature,  affirm,  on  the 
contrary,  their  existence,  and  profess  themselves  un- 
able to  account  for  the  facts  and  phenomena  of  the 
visible  universe  without  postulating  a  First  Cause, 
the  Creator  and  Ordainer  of  all  the  beauty  and  har- 
mony we  so  much  admire,  both  in  organic  and  in  inor- 
ganic nature.  From  these  quotations,  too,  we  see  how 
erroneously  the  teachings  of  true  science  are  inter- 
preted by  a  blatant  and  anti-religious  minority,  and 


*  "  On  Truth,"  pp.  483-484  ;  cf.,  also,  his  "  Lessons  from  Na- 
ture," pp.  358  et  seq.,  and  "  Genesis  of  Species,"  pp.  273  et  seq. 


876  ^  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

what  a  grievous  injustice  is  done  to  the  real  repre- 
sentatives of  science,  by  those  whose  chief  object 
seems  to  be  to  foment  discord  between  science  and 
religion,  and  to  intensify  an  odium  theologicum  on  one 
hand,  and  provoke  an  odium  scientificum.  on  the 
other,  which  are  both  as  silly  as  they  are  unwarranted. 
In  spite  of  all  that  may  be  said  to  the  contrary,  the 
unbiased  and  reverent  student  must  see  in  nature 
the  evidence  of  a  Power  which  is  originative,  direct- 
ive, immanent  ;  a  Power  which  is  intelligent,  wise, 
supreme.  And,  notwithstanding  the  asseverations 
of  the  noisy  and  supercilious  few,  who  are  notorious 
rather  for  their  fanciful  theories  than  prominent  for 
genuine  contributions  to  science,  no  serious  investi- 
gator can  fail  to  discern,  in  the  world  of  beauty  and 
usefulness  with  which  we  are  surrounded,  the  most 
conclusive  evidence  that  what  we  denominate  the 
laws  of  nature  must  have  existed  in  idea  before  they 
existed  in  fact ;  must  have  existed  in  the  mind  of  a 
supreme,  creative  Intelligence,  as  the  realities  which 
we  now  observe  and  coordinate.*  Evolution,  there- 
fore, far  from  weakening  the  argument  from  design, 
strengthens  and  ennobles  it ;  and  far  from  banishing 
teleology  from  science  and  theology,  illustrates  and 
corroborates  it  in  the  most  admirable  manner.  And 
despite  all  attempts  to  connect  teleology  with  Pan- 

^  Paley,  in  referring  to  those  who  speak  of  law  as  if  it  were 
a  cause,  very  pertinently  remarks  :  "  It  is  a  perversion  of  lan- 
guage to  assign  any  law  as  the  efficient,  operative  cause  of  any- 
thing. A  law  presupposes  an  agent,  for  it  is  only  the  mode 
according  to  which  the  agent  proceeds ;  it  implies  a  power,  for 
it  is  the  order  according  to  which  that  power  acts.  Without 
this  agent,  without  this  power,  which  are  both  distinct  from  it- 
self, the  law  does  nothing,  is  nothing."  "  Natural  Theology," 
p.  12. 


TELEOLOGY,  OLD  AND  NEW.  377 

theism  or  Materialism,  or  to  make  Evolution  sub- 
serve the  cause  of  Atheism  or  Agnosticism,  the  result 
has  been  that  we  have  now  a  higher,  a  subtler,  a 
more  comprehensive  teleology  than  the  world  has 
ever  before  known.  We  have  a  teleology  which  is 
indissolubly  linked  with  the  teachings  of  revealed 
truth  ;  a  teleology  which,  while  receiving  light  from 
Evolution,  illumines,  in  turn,  this  grand  generaliza- 
tion, and  shows  us  that  Evolution,  when  properly 
understood,  is  a  noble  witness  to  a  God  who,  unlike 
the  God  of  the  older  Deism,  that  "  simply  sets  the 
machine  of  the  universe  in  motion,  and  leaves  it  to 
work  by  itself,"  is,  on  the  contrary.  One  who,  in  the 
language  of  Holy  Scripture,  is  not  only  "  above  all, 
but  through  all,  and  in  all." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

RETROSPECT,   REFLECTIONS  AND   CONCLUSION. 
Evolution  Not  a  New  Theory. 

WE  may  now,  before  concluding  this  protracted 
study,  take  a  brief  survey  of  the  ground 
over  which  we  have  traveled  and  make  a  few  reflec- 
tions which  are  naturally  suggested  by  the  discus- 
sions which  precede. 

First  of  all,  then,  the  evolutionary  idea  is  not,  as 
we  have  learned,  the  late  development  it  is  some- 
times imagined  to  be.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  an 
idea  that  had  its  origin  in  the  speculations  of  the 
earliest  philosophers,  and  an  idea  which  has  been 
slowly  developed  by  the  studies  and  observations  of 
twenty-five  centuries  of  earnest  seekers  after  truth. 

In  reading  over  the  history  of  Greek  philosophy, 
we  are  often  surprised  to  see  how  the  sages  of  old 
Hellas  anticipated  many  of  the  views  which  are 
nowadays  so  frequently  considered  as  the  result  of 
nineteenth  century  research.  With  limited  means 
for  penetrating  the  arcana  of  Nature,  they  frequently 
accomplished  what  we  should  deem  impossible 
without  the  aid  of  microscope  and  telescope.  They 
are  often  reproached  with  being  simple,  a  priori 
reasoners,  fanciful  speculators  and  fortunate  guessers 
at  the  truth  ;  but  they  were  far  more  than  this.  They 
did  not,  it  is  true,  have  at  hand  the  wonderful  in- 
(378) 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       379 

struments  of  precision  which  we  now  possess,  but 
they  had  a  keenness  of  perception  and  a  faculty  for 
getting  at  the  heart  of  things,  which  probably  have 
never  been  equaled  and  certainly  never  surpassed. 
At  times,  indeed,  their  intuition  amounted  almost  to 
divination,  and  instead  of  being  simple  votaries  of 
science,  the  philosophers  of  those  days  were  rather 
its  prophets. 

Teachings  of  Greek  Philosophers. 

No  one  can  read  of  the  achievements  of  Aristotle, 
or  recall  his  marvelous  anticipations  of  modern  dis- 
coveries, without  feeling  that  it  was  he  who  sup- 
plied the  germs  of  what  subsequently  became  such 
large  and  beautiful  growths.  As  one  of  the  greatest, 
if  not  the  greatest,  of  the  world's  intellects,  he  ac- 
complished not  only  actually,  but  proleptically,  far 
more  than  is  usually  attributed  to  him,  especially  in 
all  that  concerns  the  now  famous  theory  of  Evolu- 
tion. He  had,  it  is  true,  received  aid  and  suggestions 
from  his  predecessors,  the  lonians,  Eleatics  and 
Pythagoreans ;  he  had  found  a  stimulus  in  the  specu- 
lations of  Heraclitus,  Empedocles,  Democritus  and 
Anaxagoras ;  but  his  own  researches  and  his  remark- 
able powers  of  generalization,  enabled  him  to  elimi- 
nate what  was  erroneous  in  their  views,  and  develop 
what  was  true,  in  such  a  way  that  his  success  in  this 
respect  has  ever  remained  a  matter  of  wonder. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  teachings  of  the 
old  Ionian  schools  regarding  the  origin  of  the  inor- 
ganic and  organic  w^orlds,  and  exhibited  a  few  of 
the  many   striking   analogies  which   exist   between 


380  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  teachings  of  Greek  philosophy  and  modern  sci- 
ence respecting  the  theory  of  Evolution.  Accord- 
ing to  Thales,  Anaximander  and  Anaximenes,  the 
world  and  all  it  contains  were  generated  from  simple 
primordial  matter.  From  the  simple  proceeds  the 
complex,  from  the  indeterminate,  ro  ar.zipov,  arise  all 
the  manifold  differentiated  forms  of  the  cosmos. 
Living  originates  from  non-living  matter,  because  all 
life  had  its  origin  in  pristine  mud.  Heraclitus  antic- 
ipates Darwin's  notion  of  "  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence," in  his  view  of  conflict,  Tz6Xe/io?,  as  the  originator 
of  all  things,  and  also  in  his  conception  of  the  en- 
deavor made  by  individuals  to  insure  their  existence 
against  the  processes  of  destruction  with  which  they 
are  surrounded.  Empedocles,  like  our  modern  sci- 
entists, taught  not  only  that  all  terrestrial  things  arise 
from  certain  primitive  elements,  but  also,  like  Dar- 
win, recognized  a  development  in  animal  and  vege- 
table forms.  He  likewise  attempted  to  explain  the 
origin  of  the  various  organic  beings,  species,  genera, 
etc.,  by  the  existence  of  certain  adaptations  which 
tend  to  perpetuate  themselves. 

Teleological  Ideas  of  Anaxagoras  and  Aristotle. 

The  first  one  of  the  Greek  philosophers  to  take  a 
teleological  view  of  nature,  to  perceive  in  the  won- 
derful adaptations  everywhere  manifested  an  evi- 
dence of  intelligent  design,  was  Anaxagoras.  His 
predecessors  and  contemporaries  were,  for  the  most 
part,  believers  in  the  doctrine  that  all  things  were 
originated  by  chance,  or  the  fortuitous  concourse  of 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       381 

atoms,  and  were,  consequently,  adherents  of  what  is 
now  known  as  the  monistic  or  mechanical  theory  of 
the  universe.  This  can  be  predicated  especially  of 
Democritus,  the  founder  of  Atomism  and  the  fore- 
runner of  Materialism. 

But  it  was  reserved  for  "  the  wisest  of  wise 
Greeks,  the  Stagirite,"  to  develop  the  teleological 
ideas  of  Anaxagoras,  and  to  show  that  the  succes- 
sion of  the  myriad  forms  of  terrestrial  life  was  due, 
not  to  simple  fortuity  but  to  the  continued,  or  at 
least  to  the  preordaining  action,  of  an  intelligent, 
efficient  Cause  or  Prime  Mover.  Whether  Aristo- 
tle believed  that  God  is  immanent  in  nature,  and 
continually  working  through  the  agency  of  natural 
causes,  or  conceived  Him  as  preordaining  from  the 
beginning  all  the  harmony  we  now  observe,  is  open 
to  question,  but  it  is  quite  clear  that  he  was  a  firm 
believer  in  Evolution  in  its  modern  sense,  as  opposed 
to  the  theory  of  special  creations.  His  theistic  views 
are,  indeed,  in  marked  contrast  with  the  agnostic  and 
materialistic  teachings  of  the  lonians,  and  of  the 
earlier  and  later  materialistic  schools,  especially  of 
those  represented  by  Empedocles,  Democritus,  Epi- 
curus and  Lucretius. 

In  the  Stagirite's  doctrines,  too,  we  find  the 
germs  of  those  views  on  creation  which  were  devel- 
oped later  on  with  such  wonderful  fullness,  and  in 
such  marvelous  perfection,  by  those  great  Doctors 
of  the  Church,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Augustine  and 
Thomas  Aquinas.  According  to  Aristotle  it  was 
necessary,  that  is,  in  compliance  with  natural  law, 
that  germs,  and  not  animals,  should  have  been  first 


382  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

produced ;  and  that  from  these  germs  all  forms  of 
life,  from  polyps  to  man,  should  be  evolved  by  the 
operation  of  natural  causes.  How  like  St.  Augus- 
tine's teaching,  that  God  in  the  beginning  created  all 
things  potentially,  in  seminc,  potentialiter,  and  that 
these  were  afterwards  developed  through  the  action 
of  secondary  causes,  causales  rationes,  during  the 
course  of  untold  ages  — per  volumina  scsculorum/ 

Influence  of  Aristotle. 

Having  now  before  our  minds  the  achievements 
of  Aristotle  in  the  domain  of  science,  and  understand- 
ing what  were  his  contributions  to  the  evolutionary 
view  of  nature,  it  is  not  difficult  for  us  to  account 
for  the  paramount  influence  which  he  wielded  in 
the  world  of  thought  for  full  twenty  centuries ;  why 
he  was  so  long  regarded  as  the  guide  of  naturalists 
and  philosophers,  as  the  "  magister  "  of  Fathers  and 
Schoolmen,  and  why  his  views  impregnated  the 
teachings,  not  only  of  thinkers  like  Descartes,  Bacon, 
Leibnitz,  Kant  and  Schelling,  but  also  tinctured  the 
speculations  of  such  naturalists  as  De  Maillet,  Oken, 
Robinet,  Buffon,  Linnaeus  and  Erasmus  Darwin. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Although  less  than  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  authors  just  named,  we  can  trace  the  in- 
fluence of  the  old  Greek  master  in  still  more  recent 
works  ;  in  those  of  Goethe  and  Lamarck,  Treviranus 
and  GeofTroy  Saint-Hilaire,  Cuvier  and  Bory  de  St. 
Vincent.  These,  with  even  later  investigators,  Von 
Baer,  Serres,  Spencer,  Richard  Owen,  Naudin, 
Wallace,  Charles  Darwin  and  St.  George  Mivart, 
have  but  developed  the  germs  and  elaborated  the 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       383 

ideas  which  the  immortal  Stagirite  left  as  a  legacy  to 
the  world  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago. 

No ;  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  theory  of 
Evolution,  whether  cosmic  or  organic,  is  something 
new  and  the  product  solely  of  modern  research.  It 
is  something  old,  as  old  as  speculative  thought,  and 
stripped  of  all  explanations  and  subsidiary  adjuncts, 
it  is  now  essentially  what  it  was  in  the  days  of  Aris- 
totle, St.  Augustine,  and  the  Angel  of  the  Schools. 
Modern  research  has  developed  and  illustrated  the 
theory,  has  given  it  a  more  definite  shape  and 
rendered  it  more  probable,  if  indeed  it  has  not 
demonstrated  its  truth,  but  the  central  idea  remains 
practically  the  same  as  it  was  when  "  the  master  of 
those  that  know — il  maestro  di  color  che  sanno"  as 
Dante  calls  Aristotle — indited  his  works  on  "  Physics" 
and  the  "  History  of  Animals,"  and  when  the  great 
Bishop  of  Hippo  penned  his  wondrous  treatises  on 
*'  Genesis  "  and  "  The  Trinity."  Indeed,  we  can  say  of 
Evolution  what  Lord  Bacon  said  of  natural  science 
in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century :  "  If," 
says  he,  "  the  natural  history  extant,  though  ap- 
parently of  great  bulk  and  variety,  were  to  be  care- 
fully weeded  of  its  fables,  antiquities,  quotations, 
frivolous  disputes,  philosophy,  ornaments,  it  would 
shrink  to  a  slender  bulk."  Similarly  might  we  affirm, 
and  with  equal  truth,  if  Evolution  were  to  be  sepa- 
rated from  all  the  theories  and  fantastical  specula- 
tions which  in  the  minds  of  many  are  an  essential 
part  of  it,  very  little,  at  least  as  to  its  principles, 
would  remain,  which  was  unknown  to  Aristotle, 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Augustine  and  Thomas  Aquinas. 


884  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Darwinism  Not  Evolution. 

Darwinism,  as  has  already  been  remarked,  is  not 
Evolution  ;  neither  is  Lamarckism  nor  Neo-Lamarck- 
ism.  The  theories  which  go  by  these  names,  as  well 
as  sundry  others,  are  but  tentative  explanations  of 
the  methods  by  which  Evolution  has  acted,  and  of  the 
processes  which  have  obtained  in  the  growth  and 
development  of  the  organic  world.  They  may  be 
true  or  false,  although  all  of  them  undoubtedly 
contain  at  least  an  element  of  truth,  but  whether 
true  or  false,  the  great  central  conception  of  Evolu- 
tion remains  unaffected.  Whether  natural  selection 
has  been  the  chief  agent  in  the  Evolution  of  plants 
and  animals,  as  Darwin  and  Wallace  contend,  or 
whether  the  influence  of  activity  and  environment 
has  been  a  more  potent  factor,  as  Lamarck  and  Cope 
maintain,  is  as  yet  uncertain.  But  be  this  as  it^ 
may,  it  matters  not.  It  is  still  far  from  certain  that 
we  have  discovered  the  leading  factor  or  factors  of 
Evolution.  All  theories  so  far  advanced,  to  account 
for  the  phenomena  of  change  and  development,  are 
at  best  but  guesses  and  provisional  hypotheses  ;  and 
no  serious  man  of  science  claims  that  they  are  any- 
thing more.  They  have  unquestionably  contributed 
much  towards  the  advancement  of  the  science  of 
biology,  and  have  enabled  naturalists  to  group  to- 
gether facts  which  were  formerly  considered  as 
disparate  and  irreconcilable.  They  have  suggested 
explanations  of  phenomena  that  were  shrouded  in 
mystery,  and  enabled  us  to  perceive  in  nature  a 
unity   of    plan   and   purpose,  which,  without   such 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       385 

theories,  would  either  be  obscured  or  entirely  elude 
our  view. 

Much,  undoubtedly,  remains  yet  to  be  done,  but 
no  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  history  of  science 
in  the  past  half  century,  can  deny  that  marvels 
have  been  accomplished  during  this  time,  and  that  a 
flood  of  light  has  been  thrown  on  some  of  the  most 
puzzling  problems  of  natural  science.  Whatever 
value,  then,  we  may  attach  to  the  theories  of  Lamarck 
and  Saint-Hilaire,  of  Darwin  and  Wallace  and  Mivart, 
no  one  can  deny  that  they  are  entitled  to  a  lasting 
debt  of  gratitude  for  their  brilliant  researches,  and 
for  their  untiring  zeal  and  signal  success  in  collect- 
ing and  coordinating  facts  in  a  way  that  has  never 
before  been  accomplished.  Whether  their  theories 
be  all  that  has  been  claimed  for  them  or  not,  they 
have  certainly  popularized  an  idea  which  prior  to 
their  promulgation  interested  but  a  few,  and  given  to 
the  study  of  science  an  impetus  which  it  had  never 
before  experienced.  They  have  given  to  the  evolu- 
tionary  idea  a  relief,  and  endowed  it  with  a  fascina- 
tion, which  have  captivated  the  world.  They  have 
inspired  among  the  masses  a  love  of  nature  which  did 
not  previously  exist,  and  have  stimulated  investiga- 
tion and  spurred  on  progress  in  a  manner  to  win  the 
admiration  and  extort  the  plaudits  of  the  most  in- 
different and  phlegmatic.  As  to  the  authors  of  these 
theories  they  have  ushered  in  a  new  era,  and  are  the 
kings  and  prophets  of  the  most  active  and  most 
prolific  period  of  research  that  the  world  has  yet 
witnessed.  Others  will  come  after  them  who  will 
correct  their  errors  and  improve  on  their  theories, 


386  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  D OGMA . 

but  the  triumphs  of  these  pioneers  of  the  renaissance 
of  science  will  endure  with  undiminished  lustre  as 
long  as  there  shall  remain  an  annalist  to  record  the 
achievements  of  human  progress. 

Evolution  in  the  Future. 

What  shall  ultimately  be  the  fate  of  the  argu- 
ments now  so  confidently  advanced  in  favor  of  Evo- 
lution by  its  friends,  and  against  it  by  its  enemies, 
only  the  future  can  decide.  The  grounds  of  defense 
and  attack  will,  no  doubt,  witness  many  and  impor- 
tant changes.  Future  research  and  discovery  will 
reveal  the  weakness  of  arguments  that  are  now  con- 
sidered unassailable,  and  expose  the  fallacies  of 
others  which,  as  at  present  viewed,  are  thoroughly 
logical.  But  new  reasons  in  favor  of  Evolution  will 
be  forthcoming  in  proportion  as  the  older  ones  shall 
be  modified  or  shown  to  be  untenable.  And,  as  the 
evolutionary  idea  shall  be  more  studied  and  devel- 
oped, the  objections  which  are  now  urged  against  it 
will,  I  doubt  not,  disappear  or  lose  much  of  their 
cogency.  New  theories  will  be  promulgated,  new 
explanations  of  present  difficulties  will  be  suggested, 
and  a  clearer  knowledge  will  be  vouchsafed  of  what 
are  the  real,  if  not  the  chief  factors,  of  the  vast  evolu- 
tionary processes  which  are  at  the  bottom  of  all  forms 
of  organic  development.  As  in  physics  so  also  in  bi- 
ology; continued  investigation  of  facts  and  phenom- 
ena is  sure  to  issue  in  a  clearer  and  truer  view  of 
nature,  and  of  the  agencies  which  have  been  in- 
strumental  in   bringing   animated  nature    from   its 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        387 

primordial  to  its  present  condition.  And  every  new 
discovery,  every  new  fact  brought  to  light  and  correl- 
ated with  facts  already  known,  will  mean  a  step 
forward  ;  will  betoken  progress,  knowledge  and  en- 
lightenment. 

As  the  old  emission  theory  of  light,  originated 
by  Descartes  and  Newton,  was  followed  by  the  un- 
dulatory  theory  formulated  by  Huygens,  Young  and 
Fresnel ;  and  as  the  latter  has  been  succeeded  by  the 
electro-magnetic  theory  of  Maxwell  and  Hertz,  so 
likewise  will  the  various  theories  which  are  now  of- 
fered in  explanation  of  the  facts  of  Evolution,  be  re- 
placed by  others  which  shall  be  a  closer  approxima- 
tion to  the  truth,  or  which  shall  eventually  exhibit 
the  truth  in  all  its  beauty  and  grandeur.  The  hy- 
potheses of  Darwin,  Wallace,  Spencer,  Mivart  and 
VVeismann  will,  no  doubt,  give  way  in  greater  or  less 
degree  to  other  theories  which,  while  being  more  in 
conformity  with  the  facts  observed,  shall  afford  a 
truer  view  of  nature  and  supply  a  more  accurate 
knowledge  of  those  of  her  operations  that  are  now 
so  mysterious  and  so  ill-understood.  The  work  to 
be  accomplished  will,  of  course,  be  slow  and  require 
time.  For,  unlike  the  theory  of  light,  Evolution  deals 
not  merely  with  one  form  of  energy,  or  forms  of 
energy  which  are  reducible  to  one.  It  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  discussion  of  only  a  narrow  and  limited 
range  of  phenomena,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  a 
theory  which  is  universal  in  its  application,  embrac- 
ing all  forms  of  energy  and  dealing  with  all  kinds  of 
matter,  from  simple  elementary  atoms  to  that  high- 
est and  most  complex  of  organisms,  man. 


388  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

That  the  task  will  be  accomplished  sooner  or  later ; 
that  we  shall  ultimately  have  a  satisfactory  explana- 
tion of  evolutionary  processes;  and  that  the  theory 
of  Evolution  will  at  length  be  established  on  a  firm 
and  logical  basis,  no  reasonable  man  can  doubt. 
Numerous  and  great  difficulties  have  been  removed 
during  the  past  few  decades,  and  one  need  not  be  a 
seer  to  foretell,  that  even  more  effective  work  will  be 
accomplished  during  the  same  period  of  time  in  the 
years  to  come.  The  world  has  proceeded  too  far  to 
admit  of  retrogression.  Advance  is  the  order  of  the 
hour,  and  final  triumph  is  inevitable. 

Evolution  Not  Antagonistic  to  Religion. 

Yet  more.  In  proportion  as  Evolution  shall  be 
placed  on  a  solider  foundation,  and  the  objections 
which  are  now  urged  against  it  shall  disappear,  so 
also  will  it  be  evinced,  that  far  from  being  an  enemy 
of  religion,  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  its  strongest  and 
most  natural  ally.  Even  those  who  have  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  traditional  forms  of  belief,  who  are, 
in  principle*  if  not  personally,  opposed  to  the  Church 
and  her  dogmas,  perceive  that  there  is  no  necessary 
antagonism  between  Evolution  and  faith,  between 
the  conclusions  of  science  and  the  declarations  of 
revelation.  Indeed,  so  avowed  an  opponent  of 
Church  and  Dogma  as  Huxley  informs  us  that:  "The 
doctrine  of  Evolution  does  not  even  come  into  con- 
tact with  Theism,  considered  as  a  philosophical  doc- 
trine. That  with  which  it  does  collide,  and  with 
which  it  is  absolutely  inconsistent,  is  the  conception 
of  creation  which  theological  speculators  have  based 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       389 

upon  the  history  narrated  in  the  opening  book  of 
Genesis." ' 

In  other  words,  Evolution  is  not  opposed  to  revela- 
tion, but  to  certain  interpretations  of  what  some  have 
imagined  to  be  revealed  truths.  It  is  not  opposed 
to  the  dogmas  of  the  Church,  but  to  the  opinions  of 
certain  individual  exponents  of  Dogma,  who  would 
have  us  believe  that  their  views  of  the  Inspired  Rec- 
ord are  the  veritable  expressions  of  Divine  truth.' 

To  say  that  Evolution  is  agnostic  or  atheistic  in 
tendency,  if  not  in  fact,  is  to  betray  a  lamentable 
ignorance  of  what  it  actually  teaches,  and  to  display 
a  singular  incapacity  for  comprehending  the  relation 
of  a  scientific  induction  to  a  philosophical — or,  more 
truthfully,  an  anti-philosophical — system.  The  sim- 
ple assertion  of  Haeckel  and  his  school,  that  Evolu- 
tion implies  the  monistic  or  mechanical  theory  of 
the  universe,  proves  nothing,  for  assertion  is  not 
proof.  Rather  should  it  be  affirmed  that  Evolution, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  true,  makes  for  religion  and  Dogma ; 
because  it  must  needs  be  that  a  true  theory  of  the 
origin  and  development  of  things  must,  when  prop- 
erly understood  and  applied,  both  strengthen  and 
illustrate  the  teachings  of  faith.     *'  When  from  the 


^ "  Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Darwin,"  vol.  I,  p.  556. 

"^  Lamarck,  with  keen  philosophic  insight,  thus  expresses 
himself  in  his  "  Philosophie  Zoologique,"  tom.  I,  p.  56  :  "  Sans 
doute  rien  n'existe  que  par  la  volont^  du  sublime  Auteur  de  toutes 
choses,  mais  pouvons-nous  lui  assigner  des  regies  dans  1 'execu- 
tion de  sa  volonte  et  fixer  la  mode  qu'il  a  suivi  a  cet  egard  ? 
Assurement,  quelle  qu'ait  ete  sa  volenti,  I'immensite  de  sa 
puissance  est  toujours  la  mfime,  et  de  quelque  mani&re  quese  soit 
executee  cette  volont^  supreme,  rien  n'en  peut  diminuer  la 
grandeur." 


390  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

dawn  of  life,"  says  Prof.  Fiske,  who  is  an  ardent 
evolutionist,  "we  see  all  things  working  together 
towards  the  Evolution  of  the  highest  spiritual  attri- 
butes or  man,  we  know,  however  the  words  may 
stumble  in  which  we  try  to  say  it,  that  God  is 
in  the  deepest  sense  a  moral  being." '  Elsewhere 
the  same  writer  truly  observes :  "  The  doctrine  of 
Evolution  destroys  the  conception  of  the  world  as  a 
machine.  It  makes  God  our  constant  refuge  and 
support,  and  nature  His  true  revelation."  And  again 
he  declares :  "  Thmigh  science  must  destroy  myth- 
ology, it  can  never  destroy  religion ;  and  to  the 
astronomer  of  the  future,  as  well  as  to  the  Psalmist 
of  old,  the  heavens  will  declare  the  glory  of  God."' 
Evolution  does,  indeed,  to  employ  the  words  of 
Carlyle,  destroy  the  conception  of  "  an  absentee  God, 
sitting  idle,  ever  since  the  first  Sabbath,  at  the  out- 
side of  His  universe  and  seeing  it  go."  ^  But  it  com- 
pels  us  to  recognize  that  "  this  fair  universe,  were  it 
in  the  meanest  province  thereof,  is,  in  very  deed,  the 
star-domed  city  of  God  ;  that  through  every  star, 
through  every  grass-blade,  and  most,  through  every 
living  soul,  the  glory  of  a  present  God  still  beams."  * 

Objections  Against  New  Theories. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  as  we  have  already  learned, 
that  Evolution  has  been  decried,  even  by  men  of 


»"The  Idea  of  God,"  p.  167. 

2"  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,"  vol.  II,  p.  416. 

'"Sartor  Resartus,"  book  II,  chap.  vn. 

*Ibid.,  book  III,  chap.  viii. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       391 

marked  ability,  as  leading  to  Atheism  or  Materialism. 
But  similar  charges  have  also  been  made  against 
other  theories  and  generalizations  which  are  now 
universally  acknowledged  as  true. 

Anaxagoras,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  con- 
demned as  a  heretic  for  asserting  that  the  sun,  the 
great  god  Helios,  was  but  a  mass  of  molten  matter. 
Spectroscopy  has  vindicated  him,  and  shown  that 
his  accusers  were  in  error.  Aristarchus  was  accused 
of  impiety  for  having  taught  that  the  earth  revolves 
round  the  sun,  and  for  having  anticipated  a  theory 
independently  discovered  and  developed  eighteen 
centuries  later  by  Copernicus.  The  Samian  astrono- 
mer was  charged  with  having  "disturbed  the  repose 
of  Vesta,"  and  the  worshippers  of  the  offended  god- 
dess accordingly  suppressed  or  destroyed  his  sacrile- 
gious works. 

Newton's  great  laws  of  universal  gravitation, 
when  first  promulgated,  were  looked  upon  with  sus- 
picion, and,  in  some  instances,  denounced  as  atheis- 
tic. Even  so  great  a  mathematician  and  philosopher 
as  Leibnitz,  did  not  hesitate  to  condemn  Newton's 
grand  discovery,  "not  only  as  physically  false,  but 
as  injurious  to  the  interests  of  religion." 

All  are  familiar  with  the  absurd  objections  urged 
against  the  heliocentric  theory  as  advocated  by  Ga- 
lileo. Lord  Bacon  rejected  it  with  contempt,  and 
even  the  distinguished  astronomer,  Tycho  Brahe, 
notwithstanding  all  the  evidence  offered  in  favor  of 
the  Copernican  system,  invented  one  of  his  own 
which  was  but  a  modification  of  Ptolemy's  and  no 
less  complex  and  cumbersome. 


392  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA, 


Galileo  and  the  Copemican  Theory. 

It  is  often  said,  even  by  those  who  should  be 
better  informed,  that  the  greatest  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  the  general  acceptance  of  the  Copernican 
theory  was  the  Church,  and  that  the  cause  of  all  of 
Galileo's  woes  was  the  ignorant  officials  of  the  In- 
quisition. The  fact  is,  however,  that  it  was  not 
churchmen,  as  such,  who  were  opposed  to  the  views 
which  Galileo  so  ardently  and  so  successfully  cham- 
pioned. It  was  rather  the  old  peripatetic  system 
of  philosophy,  which,  after  dominating  the  world  of 
thought  for  two  thousand  years,  saw  itself  finally 
face  to  face  with  what,  it  was  felt  on  all  sides,  was 
destined  to  prove  the  most  formidable  adversary  it 
had  yet  encountered.  For  the.  Ptolemaic  system 
was  so  closely  bound  up  with  the  philosophy  of  Aris- 
totle, and  this  in  turn  was  so  intimately  connected 
with  theology,  especially  since  the  time  of  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  that  any  attack  on  the  geocentric 
system  was  at  once  regarded  as  an  onslaught  on 
both  philosophy  and  theology.  So  great,  indeed, 
was  the  authority  of  the  *'  Master,"  as  Aristotle  was 
called,  and  so  long  had  his  dicta  been  accepted  with- 
out  question,  that  in  the  minds  of  many  it  was 
almost  as  impious  to  assail  his  opinions  as  it  was  to 
attack  the  dogmas  of  faith. 

One  of  the  fundamental  teachings  of  the  Stagir- 
ite  was,  for  instance,  that  concerning  the  incorrupti- 
bility and  immutability  of  the  heavens.  Galileo's 
telescopic  discoveries  showed  that  this  opinion  was 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       893 

not  based  on  fact.  He  proved  that  "the  heavens 
can  change  and  lay  aside  their  former  aspects,  and 
assume  others  entirely  new ; "  and  in  doing  this,  he 
gave  a  death  blow  to  one  of  the  leading  tenets  on 
which  peripatetics  generally  had  so  long  set  such 
store.  Learned  professors  at  Pisa,  Padua  and  Bo- 
logna, tried  to  silence  the  illustrious  Florentine  by 
the  profuse  use  of  syllogisms  and  to  disprove  the 
truth  of  his  observations  by  a/rwr/ reasonings.  He 
was  declared  by  others  to  be  the  victim  of  strange 
optical  illusions,  and,  accordingly,  it  was  asserted 
that  the  spots  on  the  sun,  and  the  satellites  of  Jupi- 
ter and  the  variable  stars  had  no  existence  outside 
of  the  observer's  diseased  imagination.  Aristotel- 
ians indignantly  denied  the  existence  of  sun-spots, 
because,  said  they :  "  It  is  impossible  that  the  eye 
of  the  universe  could  suffer  from  ophthalmia."  For 
an  equally  trivial  reason  they  rejected  Kepler's 
great  discovery  of  the  accelerated  and  retarded  mo- 
tions of  the  planets  in  different  parts  of  their  orbits. 
"  It  is  undignified,"  they  declared,  **  for  heavenly 
bodies  to  hurry  and  slacken  their  pace  in  accordance 
with  the  law  of  the  German  astronomer."  Aris- 
totelianism,  it  was  almost  universally  agreed,  was 
to  be  safeguarded  at  all  hazards,  and  Galileo,  Kep- 
ler and  other  innovators,  who  thus  ruthlessly  tram- 
pled under  foot  the  philosophy  of  the  master — "  Si 
calpesta  tutta  la  filosofia  d" Aristotele'' — were  to  be 
vanquished  at  whatever  cost,  for  if  they  were  al- 
lowed to  continue  their  sacrilegious  work,  they 
would  eventually  undermine,  not  only  philosophy 
?^n4  theology,  but  also  sacred  Scripture  as  well. 


394  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

A  quotation  from  one  Sizzi,  a  learned  astronom- 
ical authority  of  the  time,  will  serve  to  exhibit  the 
puerile  character  of  some  of  the  reasons  adduced  in 
favor  of  the  old  system  and  against  the  new.  Ga- 
lileo having,  by  the  aid  of  his  telescope,  discovered 
the  satellites  of  Jupiter,  Sizzi  argued  against  the 
existence  of  such  bodies  as  follows :  "  There  are 
seven  windows  given  to  animals  in  the  domicile  of 
the  head,  through  which  the  air  is  admitted  to  the 
tabernacle  of  the  body,  viz.,  two  nostrils,  two  eyes, 
two  ears  and  one  mouth.  So,  in  the  heavens,  as  in 
a  macrocosm,  or  great  world,  there  are  two  favora- 
ble stars,  Jupiter  and  Venus;  two  unpropitious.  Mars 
and  Saturn ;  two  luminaries,  the  sun  and  moon,  and 
Mercury  alone  undecided  and  indifferent.  From 
these  and  many  other  phenomena  of  nature,  which 
it  were  tedious  to  enumerate,  we  gather  that  the 
number  of  planets  is  necessarily  seven.  Moreover, 
the  satellites  are  invisible  to  the  naked  eye,  and 
therefore,  can  exercise  no  influence  over  the  earth, 
and  would,  of  course,  be  useless;  and  therefore  do 
not  exist." 

Such  things  appear  to  us  childish  and  absurd  in 
the  extreme  ;  but  after  all  they  are  but  a  fair  sample 
of  the  reasons  which  were  offered  by  many  of  the 
astronomers  and  philosophers  of  the  time,  against 
the  innovations  and  scientific  heresies  of  Copernicus 
and  Galileo.  When  one  calls  to  mind  what  extrava- 
gant errors  have  been  defended  in  the  name  of  Aris- 
totelian philosophy,  and  what  untold  mischief  a  priori 
reasoning  has  effected  in  the  domain  of  experimental 
science ;  when  we  understand  the  temper  of  mind  of 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CON-CLUSTON.       395 

those  who  taught  and  speculated  three  centuries 
ago,  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  the  many  strange 
things  they  said  and  did.  We  see  in  their  opinions 
and  conduct  but  a  reflex  of  what  is  always  observed 
in  the  progress  of  knowledge  and  in  the  dissipation 
of  ignorance.  The  much-talked-of  warfare  between 
science  and  religion  is  something  that  does  not  exist. 
The  warfare  is  between  truth  and  error,  between  sci- 
ence and  theory.  In  Galileo's  case,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  was  Copernicanism  versus  Aristotelianism  ;  a  priori 
reasoning  against  observation  and  experiment ;  the 
syllogism  against  the  telescope. 

Conservatism  in  Science. 

And  more  than  this.  The  same  objections  that 
were  brought  against  Galileo  and  heliocentrism,  were 
urged  against  Laplace  and  the  nebular  hypothesis ; 
against  Joule,  Mayer,  Faraday,  Liebig,  Carpenter 
and  Helmholtz,  on  account  of  their  demonstrations 
of  the  grand  doctrine  of  the  conservation  and  corre- 
lation of  the  various  physical  forces.  The  truth  is, 
men  are  loath  to  give  up  a  pet  theory,  especially 
when  they  are  once  committed  to  it,  and  when  the 
shadow  of  a  great  name  gives  to  it  an  air  of  certainty, 
if  not  of  infallibility.  As  a  result  of  this  tenacious- 
ness  of  opinion,  and  of  a  conservatism  which  was  far 
more  marked  formerly  than  it  is  at  present,  truth 
advances  slowly  and  science  is  obliged  to  contest 
every  step  forward.  For  this  reason  the  enemy  of 
science  has  not  been  religion,  as  is  so  often  declared, 
but  science  itself,  or  what  for  the  time  was  accepted 


896  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

as  science.  In  like  manner  those  who  impeded  the 
advance  of  science  were  not  the  representatives  of 
the  Church,  as  such,  but  the  advocates  of  some 
theory  or  the  adherents  of  some  school  or  system  of 
thought.  For  generally,  if  not  always,  those  who 
are  accused  of  opposing  the  advancement  of  science, 
and  who  may  actually  be  in  error  in  matters  scien- 
tific, are  as  zealously  laboring,  so  far  as  their  lights 
go,  in  the  interests  of  science,  as  those  who  have 
the  truth  on  their  side.  The  enemies  of  GaHleo, 
for  instance,  imagined  that  they  were  doing  the 
greatest  possible  service  to  science  in  battling  as 
they  did  for  Peripateticism  and  Ptolemaism.  But  if 
they  had  had  before  them  the  same  evidences  of  the 
truth  which  we  at  present  possess,  they  would  have 
made  no  hesitation  in  acknowledging  their  mistakes, 
or  rather,  they  would  never  have  fallen  into  the 
errors  for  which  they  are  now  condemned. 

Conflict  of  Opinions   Beneficial. 

In  the  long  run,  however,  the  conflict  of  opinions 
in  questions  of  science,  far  from  having  a  pernicious, 
has  a  beneficial  influence  on  the  advancement  of 
knowledge.  It  stimulates  investigation  and  discov- 
ery, and  serves  to  place  the  truth  in  such  a  light  as 
no  longer  to  admit  of  contradiction. 

The  long-fought  battle  on  the  subject  of  sponta- 
neous  generation  is  a  case  in  point.  Pasteur  and 
Van  Beneden  have  proven  by  their  epoch-making 
researches,  that  so  far  as  experiment  can  give  any  in- 
information  on  the  subject,  abiogenesis  is  a  chimera. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       397 

But  while  we  cheerfully  accord  to  these  great  savants 
all  the  encomiums  to  which  they  are  entitled,  we 
should  not  withhold  from  their  great  antagonists, 
Pouchet  and  Bastian,  the  meed  of  praise  which  their 
researches  have  earned  for  them.  The  latter  were 
mistaken  in  their  views,  it  is  true ;  they  were  van- 
quished in  the  controversy  which  they  carried  on  so 
ably  ;  but,  by  the  very  force  and  originality  of  their 
objections,  they  contributed  materially,  though  in- 
deed indirectly,  towards  putting  the  truth  in  a  bolder 
relief  than  it  would  otherwise  have  received.  Had 
not  Pasteur  met  with  the  contradictions  he  did,  had 
he  not  been  obliged  to  confute  objections  of  all  kinds, 
objections  presented  in  the  name  of  chemistry,  ob- 
jections urged  in  the  name  of  biology,  objections 
advanced  in  the  name  of  metaphysics,  he  would 
undoubtedly  have  discontinued  his  investigations 
much  sooner  than  he  did,  and  would  have  rested 
satisfied  with  his  earlier  and  simpler  proofs  of  the 
untenableness  of  spontaneous  generation. 

All  glory,  therefore,  to  Galileo  and  Pasteur  for 
their  brilliant  achievements!  But  while  sounding 
the  praises  of  the  victors,  let  us  not  forget  the 
honors  due  to  those  who  battled  long  and  gallantly 
only  to  suffer  defeat  in  the  end.  By  the  very  per- 
sistence and  stubbornness  of  their  contest,  they  en- 
hanced not  only  the  splendor  of  the  results  obtained 
by  their  conquerors,  but  they  also  labored  effectu- 
ally, albeit  indirectly,  for  the  attainment  of  the  same 
object  which  was  had  in  view  by  their  antagonists — 
the  truth,  the  advancement  of  science,  and  the  plac- 
ing of  it  on  a  surer  and  firmer  foundation. 


898  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Evolution  and  Creationism. 

Will  it  not  be  the  same  in  the  still  greater  and 
longer  contest  between  creationism,  in  the  sense  of 
special  creationism,  and  evolutionism?  From  what 
precedes  it  appears  almost  certain  that  our  reply 
must  be  in  the  affirmative.  And  when  the  smoke  of 
battle  shall  have  cleared  away ;  when  all  animosity 
shall  have  been  extinguished,  and  men  shall  have  a 
concern  only  for  the  truth,  and  not  for  certain  indi- 
vidual opinions ;  when  they  shall  be  more  disposed 
to  conserve  the  interests  of  genuine  science  than 
those  of  mere  hypothesis ;  then  will  it  be  evident  to 
the  world  that  both  victors  and  vanquished  were 
making  for  the  same  objective  point,  all  according  to 
their  lights,  and  that  the  very  earnestness  and  perse- 
verance with  which  those  in  the  wrong  led  a  forlorn 
hope,  but  contributed  in  the  end  towards  making  the 
truth  more  conspicuous  and  towards  rendering  the 
stronghold  of  science  more  impregnable.  Then,  too, 
it  will  be  manifest,  that  although  truth  was  on  the 
side  championed  by  Aristotle,  Sts.  Athanasius,  Greg- 
ory of  Nyssa,  Augustine  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  by 
Buffon,  Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire,  Lamarck,  Spencer, 
Darwin,  Huxley,  Mivart  and  their  compeers,  never- 
theless the  opponents  of  the  evolutionary  idea,  the 
Fathers  and  Schoolmen  who  favored  the  doctrine  of 
special  creation,  the  Linnseuses,  the  Cuviers  and  the 
Agassizs,  who  resolutely  and  consistently  combated 
Evolution  to  the  last,  were  all  along  but  helping  on 
and  corroborating  what  they  were  intent  on  weaken- 
ing and  destroying.     In  this  case,  as  in  so  many 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       399 

Others,  history  but  repeats  itself  and  demonstrates 
again,  that  opposition  may  be  a  source  of  strength, 
and  contradiction  the  most  effective  means  of  secur- 
ing certitude  and  light.  For  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  it  is  not  mistaken  theory  that  retards  the  prog- 
ress of  science,  but  rather  erroneous  observations. 
All  working  scientists  are  aware,  often  to  their  cost, 
that  it  is  inaccurate  or  mistaken  observations  which 
lead  men  astray,  while  erroneous  theories  have  often 
a  most  stimulating  effect.  They  suggest  and  pro- 
voke new  and  more  exact  observations,  and  thus  lead 
up  to  true  theories  and  ultimately  to  a  true  knowl- 
edge of  nature. 

Errors  in  the  Infancy  of  Science. 

It  is  indeed  a  difficult  matter  for  those  who  live 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  duly 
to  appreciate  the  mental  attitude  of  those  who  lived 
and  taught  a  thousand  or  two  thousand  years  ago. 
It  is  difficult  even  for  us  to  account  for  the  extrava- 
gant views  held  by  distinguished  scientists  of  com- 
paratively recent  times,  by  such  men,  for  example, 
as  Kepler,  Stahl,  Kircher,  Buckland  and  others  of 
their  contemporaries.  We  smile  at  the  fantastic  no- 
tions which  they  entertained  respecting  some  of  the 
most  ordinary  phenomena  of  astronomy,  chemistry, 
biology  and  geology.  But  we  forget  that  we  are  liv- 
ing in  the  full  effulgence  of  inductive  science,  and 
that  we  have  the  benefit  of  the  labors  of  thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  investigators  in  every  de- 
partment of  thought.     We  forget  that  Kepler  and 


400  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Kircher  and  their  collaborators  lived  in  the  infancy 
of  science ;  that  they  had  to  blaze  the  way  for  their 
successors,  and  that,  notwithstanding  their  best  ef- 
forts to  arrive  at  the  truth,  error  was  inevitable. 
Ignorant  of  countless  facts  now  known  to  every 
schoolboy,  and  unacquainted  with  the  theories  and 
laws  which  are  now  the  common  possession  of  all 
who  read  and  think,  it  was  but  natural  that  they 
should  have  had  recourse  to  explanations  and  hy- 
potheses which  we  should  at  present  regard  as  fanci- 
ful and  absurd. 

Thus,  Kepler  taught  that  the  heavenly  bodies 
were  guided  in  their  orbits  by  angels.  Water,  it  was 
universally  believed,  would  not  rise  in  a  pump  above 
a  certain  height  because  nature  abhors  a  vacuum. 
Fossils,  it  was  thought,  were  but  outlines  of  future 
creations  which  the  great  Artificer  had  cast  aside,  or 
objects  placed  in  the  tilted  and  contorted  strata  of 
the  earth  "to  bring  to  naught  human  curiosity." 

The  statements  regarding  animals  found  in  the 
"  Physiologus  "  and  in  the  "  Bestiaries,"  allegorical 
works  much  esteemed  during  the  Middle  Ages,  were 
accepted  as  veritable  facts,  and  believed  as  firmly  as 
were  the  ludicrous  stories  of  Pliny,  the  naturalist.  For 
a  thousand  years  and  more,  even  those  who  professed 
to  teach  natural  history  saw  in  the  fables  regarding 
the  dragon  and  the  unicorn,  the  phoenix  and  the 
basilisk,  the  hippogriff  and  the  centaur,  nothing  to 
stagger  their  faith  and  nothing  that  was  inconsistent 
with  the  science  of  the  times.  They  believed  with- 
out question  that  the  phoenix  rose  from  its  ashes, 
that  the  pelican  nourished  its  young  with  its  blood, 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       401 

that  the  salamander  could  quench  fire,  that  the 
basilisk  killed  serpents  by  its  breath  and  men  by 
its  glance,  and  many  similar  things  equally  prepos- 
terous. ' 

The  frame  of  mind,  even  of  the  most  intelligent 
men,  was  such,  that  the  extraordinary  tales  of  Marco 
Polo  and  Sir  John  Mandeville  were  credited  as 
readily  as  the  most  ordinary  facts  of  history  or 
biography.  It  was  indeed  difficult  to  exaggerate  the 
powers  or  marvels  of  animated  nature  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  they  would  be  pronounced  unworthy  of 
credence.  But  the  world  has  moved  since  the  times 
of  Polo  and  Mandeville.  Science  has  made  wondrous 
strides  forward  since  the  days  of  Kepler  and  Kircher. 
Men  are  now  more  familiar  with  the  laws  and  proc- 
esses of  the  organic  world,  and  have  learned  to  rec- 
ognize the  value  and  necessity  of  careful  observation 
on  the  part  of  the  votaries  of  science. 

And  in  proportion  as  our  knowledge  has  widened, 
and  become  more  precise,  so  likewise  have  our  con- 
ceptions of  nature  and  of  the  Deity's  methods  of 
work  been  modified  and  exalted.  We  no  longer 
look  upon  God  as  an  architect,  a  carpenter,  an  arti- 
ficer ;  one  who  must  plan  and  labor  in  a  human 
fashion,  as  He  was  contemplated  in  the  infancy  of 


^  In  the  "  Physiologus"  we  read  the  following  about  the  ant- 
lion,  or  myrmekoleon  :  "  His  father  hath  the  shape  of  a  lion,  his 
mother  that  of  an  ant;  the  father  liveth  upon  flesh  and  the 
mother  upon  herbs.  And  these  bring  forth  the  ant-lion,  a  com- 
pound of  both  and  in  part  like  to  either,  for  his  forepart  is  that 
of  a  lion  and  his  hind  part  like  that  of  an  ant.  Being  thus  com- 
posed he  is  neither  able  to  eat  flesh  like  his  father,  nor  herbs  like 
his  mother,  therefore  he  perishes  from  inanition."  See  "En- 
cyclopiedia  Britannica,"  art.,  Physiologus. 


402  E  VOL  U TION  A  ND  DOGAfA . 

our  race,  when  the  knowledge  of  the  universe  was 
much  more  circumscribed  than  it  is  at  present.  We 
now  regard  Him  as  a  Creator  in  the  highest  and 
truest  sense  of  the  term ;  as  one  who  "  protects  and 
governs  by  His  Providence  all  things  which  He 
hath  made,"  and  who  "  reacheth  from  end  to  end 
mightily  and  ordereth  all  things  sweetly."  ' 

Science  Not  Omnipotent. 

But  although  science  has  made  marvelous  ad- 
vances during  recent  times,  especially  during  the 
present  century,  and  although  Evolution  has  con- 
tributed in  a  wonderful  manner  towards,  unifying 
what  was  before  a  heterogeneous  mass  of  almost  un- 
intelligible facts,  science  is  not  omnipotent,  nor  is 
Evolution  competent  to  furnish  a  key  to  all  the 
mysteries  of  nature.  To  judge  from  the  declarations 
of  some  of  the  best  known  representatives  of  modern 
thought,  science  was  to  replace  religion  and  the 
Church,  and  to  do  far  more  for  the  welfare  and  eleva- 
tion of  humanity  than  the  Gospel  and  its  ministers  are 
capable  of  effecting.  Renan  declares,  that  it  is  "  sci- 
ence which  will  ever  furnish  man  with  the  sole  means 
of  bettering  his  condition."  Again  he  assures  us,  that 
"  to  organize  humanity  scientifically  is  the  last  word 
of  modern  science,  its  daring  but  legitimate  aim."* 


^"Wisdom,"  viii,  i,  and  "  Council  of  the  Vatican,"  chap.  i. 

'  "  La  science  restera  toujours  la  satisfaction  du  plus  haut 
desir  de  notre  nature,  la  curiosite;  elle  fournira  toujours  a 
riiomme  le  seul  moyen  qu'il  ait  pour  ameliorer  son  sort." 

"Organiser  scientifiquement  I'humanite,  tel  est  done  le 
dernier  mot  de  la  science  moderne,  telle  est  son  audacieuse, 
mais  legitime  pretension."     "  L'Avenir  de  la  Science,"  p.  37. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        403 

Science,  we  were  told  but  a  few  decades  ago,  would 
suppress  the  supernatural,  remove  mysteries  and 
explain  miracles.  It  would  tell  us  all  about  the 
origin  of  things ;  the  world,  life,  sensation,  rational 
thought.  It  would  inform  us  about  the  origin  of 
society,  language,  morality,  religion.  It  would  throw 
light  not  only  on  the  origin  of  man's  body  and  soul, 
but  also  on  his  ultimate  destiny.  It  would,  in  a  word, 
frame  for  us  a  complete  cosmology,  a  complete  code 
of  ethics,  and  introduce  a  new  religion,  which  would 
be  as  superior  to  Christianity  as  science  is  superior 
to  superstition.  It  promised  that  we  should  one 
day  be  able  to  "  express  consciousness  in  foot- 
pounds ;"  that  we  should  be  able  to  trace  the  con- 
nection between  "the  sentiment  of  love  and  the 
play  of  molecules ;"  that  we  should  be  in  a  position 
to  discern  "  human  genius  and  moral  aspiration  in  a 
ring  of  cosmical  vapor."  Thanks  to  science  and  to 
its  grand  generalization.  Evolution,  old  systems  of 
thought  were  to  be  wiped  out  of  existence,  and  we 
were  to  be  ushered  into  an  era  of  general  enlighten- 
ment and  universal  progress. 

But  has  science,  as  represented  by  Renan,  Haeckel 
and  others  of  their  way  of  thinking,  made  good  its 
promises?  Has  it  been  able  to  dispense  with  a  per- 
sonal God,  and  to  relegate  the  supernatural  to  the 
limbo  "where  entities  and  quiddities,  the  ghosts  of  un- 
known bodies  lie"?  Has  it,  in  the  words  of  Virchow, 
succeeded  in  referring  the  origin  of  life  to  "  a 
special  system  of  mechanics,"  or  in  proving  Renan's 
view  that  "the  harmony  of  nature  is  but  a  resultant," 
and  that  "  the  existence  of  things  is  but  an  affair  of 


404  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA . 

equilibrium"?*  Has  the  religion  which  makes  a 
God  of  humanity  regarded  in  the  abstract,  or  which 
evolves  a  Deity  from  the  universe  considered  as  a 
whole,  rendered  men  better  or  happier?  These  are 
questions  which  press  for  an  answer,  but  which, 
fortunately,  can  be  answered  as  readily  as  they  are 
asked. 

The  response  to  all  these  questions,  collectively 
and  severally,  is  a  peremptory  negative.  It  is  the 
response  which  true  philosophers  and  true  men  of 
science  the  world  over  have  given  all  along.  For  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  utterances 
of  Renan,  Haeckel,  and  their  followers,  have  the  in- 
dorsement of  the  worthier  representatives  of  science, 
or  that  true  science  has  ever  made  the  pretensions 
claimed  for  it  by  some  of  its  self-constituted  expo- 
nents and  protagonists.  There  are  soi-disant  scien- 
tists and  true  scientists,  as  well  as  there  is  a  sham 
science  and  a  science  deserving  the  name. 

Bankruptcy  of  Science. 

It  was  in  speaking  of  such  soi-disant  scientists  and 
their  unfulfilled  promises,  of  such  sham  science  and 
its  boastful  pretensions,  that  a  brilliant  member  of 
the  French  Academy,  M.  Brunetiere,  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  declare  recently  that  "  science  had  become 
bankrupt."  Science  has  promised  to  tell  us  whence 
we  come,  what  we  are,  whither  we  are  going ;  but  it 


'  "  Ceux  qui  s'obstinent  a  reconnaitre  les  traces  d'une  intelli- 
gence creatrice  dans  le  developpement  de  I'univers,  sont  encore 
dans  les  liens  des  vieilles  illusions,  car  I'harmonie  de  la  nature 
n'est  qu'une  resultant,  et  I'existence  des  choses  une  affaire 
d'equilibre."     Renan,  "  L'Avenir  de  la  Science." 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        405 

has  signally  and  totally  failed  to  give  an  answer  to 
any  of  these  questions. 

Hellenists  had  engaged  themselves  to  exhibit  the 
whole  of  Christianity  in  the  philosophy  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  and  to  pick  out  for  us  in  the  "Thoughts" 
of  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  the  "Manual"  of  Epictetus, 
all  the  "  scattered  members  "  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  But  they  did  not  succeed  in  this,  and  still 
less  did  they  succeed  in  explaining  why  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  has  conquered  the  world,  and  why  the 
"Manual,"  and  the  "Thoughts"  of  Epictetus  and 
Marcus  Aurelius  have  always  remained  completely 
sterile. 

Hebraists  undertook  to  dissipate  the  "irrational " 
and  "the  marvelous,"  in  the  Bible;  to  exhibit  it  as  a 
book  like  the  "  Iliad  "  or  the  "  Mahabahrata,"  but  the 
sum  total  of  their  researches  has  issued  in  the  very 
opposite  of  what  they  anticipated,  and  their  labors 
have  had  the  effect  of  reintegrating  what  they  had 
hoped  to  destroy. 

Orientalists,  in  their  turn,  promised  to  deduce 
Christianity  from  Buddhism,  and  to  prove  that  the 
teachings  of  Christ  were  drawn  wholly,  or  in  great 
part,  from  the  doctrines  of  Buddha.  Like  the  Hel- 
lenists and  Hebraists,  however,  these  orientalists  failed 
completely  to  establish  their  thesis,  and,  far  from 
throwing  light  on  the  subjects  which  they  set  out  to 
clear  up,  they  but  plunged  them  into  greater  obscur- 
ity and  introduced  new  hypotheses  instead  of  reach- 
ing positive  and  incontestable  conclusions. 

All  along  the  line,  the  science  of  which  we 
are  speaking — the   phyiscal,  natural,  historical,  and 


406  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

philological  sciences — has  shown  itself  incapable  of 
giving  an  answer  to  the  very  questions  which  most 
interest  us.  And  still  more  has  it  forfeited  the  claim, 
which  it  has  made  during  the  past  hundred  years,  to 
frame  laws  for  the  government  of  mankind  in  lieu  of 
those  given  by  Christ  and  His  Church.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  all  thoughtful  men  are  beginning  to 
realize  the  fact,  if  they  did  not  realize  it  before,  that 
questions  of  free-will  and  moral  responsibility  are  not 
to  be  settled  by  physiology,  nor  are  rules  of  conduct 
to  be  sought  for  in  Evolution.  Hence,  if  we  are  to 
live  anything  more  than  an  animal  life,  we  must  have 
something  higher  than  science  is  able  to  afford ;  we 
must  be  guided  by  the  teachings  of  the  Founder  of 
Christianity,  by  the  saving  influence  of  that  Church 
which,  for  well-nigh  two  thousand  years,  has  shown 
herself  the  sole  power  capable  of  lifting  man  from  a 
lower  to  a  higher  moral  and  spiritual  plane. 

The  net  result,  therefore,  of  a  hundred  years  of 
aggressive  warfare  against  the  Church  and  religion, 
the  outcome  of  all  the  flattering  but  misleading 
promises  of  science  in  the  matters  which  we  have 
been  considering,  have  been  the  very  opposite  of 
those  intended.  M.  Brunetiere  resumes  the  result 
in  two  words — and  no  well-informed  person  will,  I 
think,  be  disposed  to  contradict  his  conclusions — 
these  are :  "  Science  has  lost  its  prestige,  and  religion 
has  recovered  a  portion  of  hers."  * 


'"La  Science  a  perdu  son  prestige;  et  la  Religion  a  recon- 
quis  une  partie  du  sien."  See  his  interesting  article,  "Apres  une 
Visite  au  Vatican,"  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  for  Jan.  i , 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        407 

M.  Bruneti^re's  study  is  pretty  much  in  the  same 
strain  as  Lord  Salisbury's  much-discussed  address 
at  Oxford,  before  the  British  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Science.  And  has  not  Huxley,  one  of 
the  most  applauded  representatives  of  science,  and 
one  of  the  staunchest  defenders  of  Evolution,  been 
forced  to  admit,  in  his  celebrated  Romanes  Lecture, 
that  science  and  Evolution  have  limitations  which 
he  would  have  been  loath  to  acknowledge  but  a  few 
years  before  he  made  the  confession  that  so  startled 
many  of  his  scientific  friends?  The  conclusion  of 
this  studied  effort  of  the  noted  evolutionist  is,  briefly 
stated,  that  the  cosmic  process,  or  Evolution,  is  ut- 
terly incompatible  with  ethical  progress,  or  rather, 
the  two  are  ever  and  essentially  antagonistic' 

And  Herbert  Spencer,  too,  the  great  philosopher 
of  Evolution,  who  sees  the  working  of  Evolution  in 
everything ;  in  the  development  of  society,  language, 
government,  of  worlds  and  systems  of  worlds,  was 
obliged  not  long  since  to  admit,  not  without  reluc- 
tance we  may  be  sure,  that  Evolution  is  not  operat- 
ing so  rapidly  as  he  expected  it  would,  and  is  not 
fulfilling  all  the  fond  hopes  he  entertained  regard- 
ing it  as  a  factor  of  human  progress.  "  My  faith  in 
free  institutions,"  says  he,  "  originally  strong,  though 
always  formed  with  the  belief  that  the  maintenance 
and  success  of  them  is  a  question  of  popular  charac- 


*"  Social  progress,"  he  tells  us,  "means  a  checking  of  the 
cosmic  process  at  every  step  and  the  substitution  for  it  of  another, 
which  may  be  called  the  ethical  process;  the  end  of  which  is  not 
the  survival  of  who  may  happen  to  be  the  fittest,  in  respect  of 
the  whole  of  the  conditions  which  obtain,  but  of  those  who  are 
ethically  the  best." 


408  E  VOL  UTIQN  A  ND  D  O GMA . 

ter,  has,  in  these  later  years,  been  greatly  decreased 
by  the  conviction  that  the  fit  character  is  not  pos- 
sessed by  any  people,  nor  is  likely  to  be  possessed 
for  ages  to  come." ' 

Conquests  of  Science. 

It  would  be  a  grave  mistake,  however,  to  imagine 
that,  because  science  has  become  bankrupt  in  some 
things,  she  has  lost  her  prestige  entirely.  Nothing 
could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  No  one  who  is  ac- 
quainted with  the  brilliant  conquests  of  science  dur- 
ing the  present  century,  could  entertain  such  an  opin- 
ion for  a  moment.  What  M.  Brunetiere  means,  and 
what  all  those  who  indorse  his  statements  mean,  is 
that  she  has  failed  by  attempting  what  was  beyond 
her  competence ;  by  essaying  to  solve  problems  and 
effect  reforms  that  lie  entirely  within  the  domain  of 
religion  and  philosophy.  She  has  erred  by  con- 
founding empiricism  with  metaphysics,  and  become 
insolvent  only  by  assuming  liabilities  that  were  man- 
ifestly outside  of  her  sphere  of  action.  But  so  long 
as  she  was  content  with  her  own  methods,  and  con- 
fined her  investigations  to  her  own  province,  she 
made  good  all  her  promises,  if  she  did  not  accom- 
plish  even  more.  A  glance  at  the  annals  of  science 
during  the  past  few  decades,  to  go  back  no  further, 
should  satisfy  the  most  skeptical  on  this  point. 
She  has  given  to  the  arts  of  life  an  impetus  they 
never  felt  before.  The  forces  of  steam  and  electric- 
ity have  received  a  development  and  been  given  ap- 
plications that  have  been  the  marvel  of  the  world. 

*  See  McClure's  Magazine^  for  March,  1894. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        409 

Nor  has  theoretical  science  in  anywise  failed  to  keep 
pace  with  the  practical.  Chemistry,  biology,  astron- 
omy, physics,  geology,  aside  from  their  practical 
applications,  have  wonderfully  extended  our  views  of 
the  universe  and  given  us  far  nobler  conceptions 
both  of  nature  and  nature's  God. 

And,  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  not  the  least 
noble  of  these  conceptions  comes  to  us  from  that 
very  theory  which,  only  a  few  years  ago,  was  sup- 
posed to  have  banished  forever  the  Creator  from  the 
world  of  reality ;  a  theory  which  was  at  once  the 
scandal  of  the  pious  and  the  incubus  of  the  ortho- 
dox. Evolution,  it  was  asserted,  had  disproved  the 
declarations  of  Scripture,  and  shown  the  inutility  of 
a  religion  based  on  Dogma.  It  had  dethroned  the 
Almighty,  had  demonstrated  that  the  universe  is 
eternal,  and  that  the  order  and  beauty  which  we 
everywhere  behold  is  the  result  of  a  fortuitous  con- 
course of  atoms.  There  is,  therefore,  we  were  told, 
neither  design  nor  purpose  in  nature,  and  the  doc- 
trine of  final  causes,  on  which  theologians  were  wont 
to  lay  so  much  stress,  is  completely  and  forever  dis- 
credited. 

More  mature  reflection,  however,  shows  that  all 
these  assertions  are  as  rash  as  they  are  unwarranted. 
Never  in  the  history  of  science  have  thoughtful 
students  of  nature  felt  more  deeply  the  necessity  of 
recognizing  a  personal  Creator,  a  spiritual,  intelli- 
gent First  Cause,  than  at  present.  Never  have  men 
seen  more  clearly  the  necessity  of  religion,  as  the 
sole  agency  which  is  capable  of  elevating  and  saving 
human    society    from    the   countless   dangers   with 


410  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

which  it  is  now  beset.  Never  has  the  Divine  char- 
acter of  the  Book  of  books,  been  so  gloriously  man- 
ifested as  it  is  now,  after  the  many  and  furious 
onslaughts  made  on  it  in  the  name  of  science  and 
the  Higher  Criticism.  For,  strange  to  say,  the  very 
investigations  and  discoveries  which  it  was  fondly 
imagined  would  completely  nullify  all  its  claims  to 
being  a  Divine  revelation,  far  from  destroying  such 
claims  have  but  strengthened  them  and  rendered 
them  more  logical  and  consistent. 

Evidences  of  Design  and  Purpose. 

And  as  to  the  evidence  of  design  and  purpose  in 
nature,  it  was  never  more  strikingly  conclusive.  But 
believing  in  final  causes  does  not  imply,  let  it  be 
borne  in  mind,  that  we  can  always  discover  what  is 
the  precise  purpose  which  is  to  be  subserved  by  any 
given  creature  or  organ.  God  has  not  taken  us  into 
His  counsels,  and  we  can  at  best  catch  but  glimpses 
of  His  Divine  plans  and  purposes.' 

There  are,  undoubtedly,  many  ends  and  purposes 
to  be  answered  in  all  created  things,  and  those  of 
which  we  can  attain  any  knowledge  may  be  the  least 

'  Descartes,  in  reference  to  this  matter,  truthfully  observes : 
"Nous  ne  devons  pas  tant  presumer  de  nous-m^mes,  que  de 
croire  que  Dieu  nous  ait  voulu  faire  part  de  ses  conseils."  Lord 
Bacon  speaks  still  more  forcibly  of  the  fallacy  and  folly  of 
those  who  fancy  they  can  read  nature,  or  interpret  the  Divine 
plans  and  purposes  in  nature.  "  Neque  enim  credibile  est  quan- 
tum agmen  idolorum  philosophise  immiserit  naturalium  opera- 
tionum  ad  similitudinem  actionum  humanarum  reductio.  Hoc 
ipsum,  inquam,  quod  putetur  talia  natura  facere,  qualia  homo 
facit.  Neque  multo  meliora  sunt  ista  quam  hseresis  anthropo- 
morphitarum  .  .  .  aut  sententia  Epicuri  huic  ipsi  in  pagan- 
ismo  respondens,  qui  diis  humanam  figuram  tribuebat."  "  De 
Aug.  Scien. ;  "  V  :  iv. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        411 

important.  As  Mivart  puts  it :  "  Out  of  many,  say  a 
thousand  million,  reasons  for  the  institution  of  the 
laws  of  the  physical  universe,  some  few  are  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  conceivable  by  us;  and  amongst  these 
the  benefits,  material  and  moral,  accruing  from  them 
to  men — and  to  each  individual  man  in  every  circum- 
stance of  his  life — play  a  certain,  perhaps  a  very 
subordinate,  part."  '  The  existence  of  an  intelligent 
First  Cause  necessarily  supposes  that  all  forms  of 
organization  must  be  purposeful,  once  such  forms 
exist,  just  as  a  world  full  of  design  manifestly  pro- 
claims the  existence  of  a  Designer. 

Again,  there  are  some  who  seem  to  think,  if  they 
can  but  find  out  how  a  law  of  nature  operates,  or 
what  may  be  one  of  the  many  millions  of  purposes 
which  an  individual  structure  may  serve,  they  have 
thereby  eliminated  the  action  of  Providence,  or  shown 
it  to  be  non-existent.  They  conclude  that  because, 
forsooth,  they  understand  how  a  thing  is  done,  that 
God  did  not  do  it.  "  No  matter  how  wonderful,  how 
beautiful,  how  intimately  complex  and  delicate  has 
been  the  machinery  which  has  worked,  perhaps  for 
centuries,  perhaps  for  millions  of  ages,  to  bring  about 
some  beneficent  results,  if  they  can  but  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  wheels,  its  Divine  character  disap- 
pears." 

In  marked  contrast  with  the  opinions  of  sciolists 
and  professed  monists,  respecting  design  and  purpose 
in  nature,  is  the  view  entertained  by  one  of  the  ablest 
living  masters  of  science.  Lord  Kelvin.  "  I  feel  pro- 
foundly convinced,"  he  declares,  "  that  the  argument 

' "  The  Genesis  of  Species,"  p.  259. 


412  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

of  design  has  been  greatly  too  much  lost  sight  of 
in  recent  zoological  speculations.  Overpoweringly 
strong  proofs  of  intelligent  and  benevolent  design  lie 
around  us,  and  if  ever  perplexities,  whether  metaphys- 
ical or  scientific,  turn  us  away  from  them  for  a  time, 
they  come  back  upon  us  with  irresistible  force,  show- 
ing to  us,  through  nature,  the  influence  of  a  freewill, 
and  teaching  us  that  all  living  things  depend  on  one 
everlasting  Creator  and  Ruler." 

No,  the  argument  from  design  has  not  been  in- 
validated ;  it  has  been  modified.  It  has  not  been 
weakened ;  it  has  been  strengthened  and  expanded. 
Teleology  to-day  is  not,  indeed,  the  same  as  it  was  in 
Paley's  time,  nor  as  it  was  when  the  authors  of  the 
Bridgewater  Treatises  lived  and  labored.  It  is  now 
a  more  comprehensive,  a  more  beautiful,  and  a  more 
stimulating  science.  To  Paley,  awatch  found  on  the 
heath  by  a  passing  traveler,  was  evidence  of  design 
and  of  a  designer.  To  the  evolutionist,  the  evidence 
of  design  is  not  merely  a  watch,  but  a  watch  which  is 
capable  of  producing  other  and  better  watches.  To 
Paley,  God  was  an  Artificer  who  fashioned  things  di- 
rectly from  the  materials  at  hand  ;  to  the  evolutionist, 
as  to  St.  Athanasius,  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  St. 
Augustine,  God  is  a  Creator  who  makes  things  make 
themselves.  To  Paley,  as  to  the  older  school  of  natural 
theologians,  God  was  the  direct  cause  of  all  that  exists ; 
to  the  evolutionist  he  is  the  Cause  of  causes — Causa 
causarum,  of  the  world  and  all  it  contains.  Accord- 
ing to  the  older  view,  God  created  everything  directly 
and  in  the  condition  in  which  it  now  exists  ;  accord- 
ing to   Evolution,  creation,  or  development  rather, 


RBFLB  C  T/OJ^S  A  ND  C  ONCL  US  I  ON.       413 

has  been  a  slow  and  gradual  process,  demanding  un- 
told aeons  for  converting  chaos  into  a  cosmos,  and 
for  giving  to  the  visible  universe  all  the  beauty  and 
harmony  which  it  now  exhibits.  It  seems,  indeed, 
more  consonant  with  our  ideas  of  God,  to  Whom  a 
thousand  years  are  as  one  day  and  one  day  as  a 
thousand  years,  to  conceive  Him  as  creating  all 
things  in  the  beginning,  and  in  ordering  and  admin- 
istering them  afterwards  through  the  agency  of  sec- 
ondary causes,  rather  than  to  represent  Him  as 
perpetually  taking  up  a  work  which  He  had  left 
unfinished,  and  bringing  it  to  a  state  of  perfection 
only  by  a  long  series  of  interferences  and  special 
creations.  Understood  in  this,  its  true  sense.  Evo- 
lution teaches,  as  Temple  phrases  it,  that  the  execu- 
tion of  God's  "  purpose  belongs  more  to  the  original 
act  of  creation,  less  to  acts  of  government.  There  is 
more  Divine  foresight,  there  is  less  Divine  interpo- 
sition ;  and  whatever  has  been  taken  from  the  latter 
has  been  added  to  the  former." ' 

Rudimentary  Organs. 

For  a  long  time  naturalists  were  sorely  puzzled 
as  to  how  to  account  for  the  existence  of  nascent 
and  rudimentary  organs,  which  are  manifestly  of  no 
use  to  their  possessors.  On  the  theory  of  special 
creations,  the  only  explanation  that  could  be  offered 
for  their  existence  was,  that  the  Creator  added  them 
for  the  sake  of  symmetry,  or  because  they  were  a 
part  of  His  plan.  Evolution,  however,  which  con- 
templates not  only  the  history  of  the  individual  but 

'"The  Relations  Between  Religion  and  Science,"  p.  123. 


414  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA.  \ 

i 

also  the  history  of  the  species,  yea,  even  the  history  | 

of  the  class  and  of  the  kingdom  to  which  the  indi- 
vidual belongs,  gives  quite  a  different  answer.  If 
ontogeny,  the  history  of  the  individual,  affords  no 
clue  to  the  raison  d'Hre  of  these  nascent  and  rudi- 
mentary organs,  we  interrogate  phylogeny,  the  his- 
tory of  the  species  or  the  class.  **  Organs,  which  on 
the  old  theory  of  special  creation  were  useless  and 
meaningless,  are  now  seen  to  have  their  explanation 
in  the  past  or  in  the  future,  according  as  they  are 
rudimentary  or  nascent.  There  is  nothing  useless, 
nothing  meaningless  in  nature,  nothing  due  to  ca- 
price or  chance,  nothing  irrational  or  without  a  cause, 
nothing  outside  the  reign  of  law.  This  belief  in  the 
universality  of  law  and  order  is  the  scientific  ana- 
logue of  the  Christian's  belief  in  Providence."  * 

Evolution,  Scripture,  and  Theology. 

Evolution  accentuates  design,  without  which,  as 
Von  Hartmann  observes,  all  were  "  only  a  dark  chaos 
of  obstinate  and  capricious  forces."  It  gives  a  truer 
and  more  majestic  account  of  causation,  because  it 
brings  home  to  us  the  truth,  that  the  facts  of  nature 
are  the  acts  of  God,  and  emphasizes  the  teaching  of 
our  faith,  that  the  laws  of  nature  are  the  expressions 
of  "a  supreme  will  and  purpose  belonging  to  an 
Eternal  Mind." 

Evolution  has  been  denounced  as  anti-Scriptural, 
and  yet,  the  most  remarkable  feature  about  the  Gene- 
siac  account  of  creation,  is  the  ease  with  which  it 
lends  itself  to  the  theory  of  Evolution,  that  is,  of 

* "  Science  and  the  Faith,"  by  Aubrey  L.  Moore,  p.  197. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        415 

creation  by  the  operation  of  secondary  causes.  We 
may  not,  indeed,  be  prepared  to  assert  with  Naudin, 
that  "  the  cosmogony  of  the  Bible  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  is  but  an  Evolution  theory,  and  that 
Moses  is  the  ancestor  of  Lamarck,  Darwin  and  all 
modern  evolutionists,"  but  we  can  certainly  affirm, 
as  Canon  Hamard  points  out,  that  the  Sacred  Text 
favors  Transformism  when  understood  in  a  theistic 
sense — "  le  texte  sacrd  favoriseh  certains  egardsla  these 
transformiste  entendue  dans  un  sens  spiritualiste}  " 

Surprising   as  it    may   seem,  two   of    the   most 
pronounced  advocates  of  the  Evolution  theory,  are 
the  very  ones  who  are  most  impressed  with  the  re- 
markable harmony  between  the  Genesiac  account  of 
creation    and   the    teachings   of    Evolution.     Thus, 
Romanes  admits  that  "  the  order  in  which  the  flora  ~^    / 
and  fauna  are  said  by  the  Mosaic  account  to  have  C 
appeareH^jpon  the  earth,  corresponds  with  that  which   n 
the  theory  of  Evolution  requires  and  the  evidence  of 
geology  proves." '     Haeckel,  however,  is  even  more 
explicit    in  his   explanations.     "  Two   great   funda- 
mental  ideas,"  he  says,  "  common  also  to  the  non- 
miraculous,   meet  us  in  the  Mosaic    hypothesis  of 
creation,  with  surprising  clearness   and    simplicity ; 

^  See  "  Dictionnaire  Apologetique  de  la  Foi  Catholique," 
par  M.  I'Abbe  J.  B.  Jaugey,  col.  3093.  Further  on  the  distin- 
guished canon  expresses  himself  as  follows: — "Nous  conclu- 
rons  seulment,  de  quelques  considerations  que  nous  venons  d  '^b- 
aucher,  que  la  Bible  laisse  une  egale  liberte  aux  transformistes  et 
aux  partisans  des  creations  successives.  Ainsi  regrettons-nous 
de  la  voir  mise  en  cause  a  ce  sujet.  Toutes  les  fois  qu'elle  n'est 
point  absolument  explicite — et  il  nous  semble  que  c'est  le  cas — 
on  s'expose,  en  invoquant  son  autorite,  a  la  compromettre  et  a 
cotnpromettreavec  elle  la  cause  religieuse  dont  elleest  lesoutien." 

"Cf.  Nature,  Aug.,  1881. 


416  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

the  idea  of  separation  or  differentiation,  and  the 
idea  of  progressive  development  or  perfecting.  Al- 
though Moses  looks  upon  the  results  of  the  great 
laws  of  organic  development,  which  we  shall  later 
point  out  as  the  necessary  conclusions  of  the  doc- 
trine of  descent,  as  the  direct  action  of  a  constructing 
Creator,  yet  in  this  theory  there  lies  hidden  the  rul- 
ing idea  of  a  progressive  development  and  differ- 
entiation of  the  originally  simple  matter.  We  can, 
therefore,  bestow  our  just  and  sincere  admiration  of 
the  Jewish  law-giver's  grand  insight  into  nature,  and 
his  simple  and  natural  hypothesis  of  creation.'" 

Evolution  has  been  condemned  as  anti-Patristic 
and  anti-Scholastic,  although  Saints  Gregory  of 
Nyssa,  Augustine  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  are  most 
explicit  in  their  assertion  of  principles  that  are  in 
perfect  accord  with  all  the  legitimate  demands  of 
theistic  Evolution.  It  suffices  to  recall  the  admir- 
able passage  of  the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  in  his  "  De 
Genesi  ad  Litteram,"  in  which  he  proleptically  an- 
nounced all  the  fundamental  principles  of  modern 
Evolution.  He  recognized  Evolution  not  only  in 
individuals,  but  he  also  discerned  its  workings  in  the 
sum  of  all  things.  God  did  not  create  the  world,  as 
it  now  exists,  actually,  actualiter,  but  potentially  and 
causally,  potentialiter  et  causaliter.  Plants  and  ani- 
mals were  created  virtually,  vi  potentiaque  causali, 
before  they  received  their  subsequent  development, 
priusquam  per  temporum  moras  exorirentur^ 

'  "  History  of  Creation,"  vol.  I,  p.  38. 

'  Vid.  sup.,  part  II,  chap,  iv,  for  St.  Augustine's  views  on 
Evolution. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        417 
Evolution  and  Special  Creation. 

In  reference  to  the  popular  objections  against 
Evolution  that  it  reposes  on  no  positive  demonstra- 
tion ;  that  none  of  the  arguments  advanced  in  its  be- 
half are  conclusive ;  that  all  of  them,  whether  taken 
severally  or  collectively  are  vitiated  by  some  flaw, 
and  that,  consequently,  they  are  not  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  to  command  the  assent  of  reasonable  men, 
it  may  be  observed  that  all  of  them  can  be  urged 
with  equal,  and  even  with  greater  force  against  the 
rival  of  the  Evolution  theory,  to  wit,  the  theory 
of  special  creation.'  Contrary  to  what  its  support- 
ers would  be  disposed  to  admit,  it  has  no  founda- 
tion but  assumption,  and  can  claim  no  more  sub- 
stantial basis  than  certain  postulates  which  are 
entirely  gratuitous,  or  certain  views  regarding  the 
Genesiac  account  of  creation,  the  truth  of  which 
views  may  as  readily  and  with  as  much  reason 
be  denied  as  it  can  be  affirmed.  For  as  the 
learned  Abb^  Guillemet  declared  before  a  sympa- 
thetic audience,  composed  of  distinguished  eccle- 
siastics and  scholarly  laymen,  at  the  International 
Catholic  Scientific  Congress  at  Brussels,  the  theory 
of  special  creation,  or  fixism  as  he  prefers  to  call 
it,  explains  nothing  whatever  in  science.  Not  only 
this,  "it  closes  the  door  to  all  explanations  of  na- 
ture, and  notably  so  in  the  domain  of  paleontology, 

'According  to  the  theory  of  special  creation  as  formerly 
held,  everything  in  the  inorganic,  as  well  as  in  the  organic 
world,  was  created  by  God  directly  and  essentially  as  it  now 
appears.  But  as  at  present  understood,  special  creation  means 
rather  that  the  Deity  created  immediately  all  the  species  and 
higher  groups,  of  animals  and  plants,  as  they  now  exist. 

E.-»7 


418  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  DOGMA . 

comparative  anatomy,  embryology  and  teratology. 
It  affords  no  clue  to  the  significance  of  rudimentary 
organs,  and  tends  inevitably  to  force  science  into  a 
veritable  cul-de-sac."* 

Again,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  objections 
referred  to  are  based  not  only  on  a  misapprehen- 
sion of  the  significance  of  the  theory  of  Evolution, 
as  well  as  of  that  of  the  theory  of  special  creation, 
but  also  on  a  misconception  of  the  character  of  the 
arguments  which  are  urged  in  favor  of  both  theo- 
ries. The  misapprehension  arises  from  the  fact, 
that  Evolution  is  regarded  as  being  at  best  but  a 
flimsy  hypothesis,  while  special  creation  is  repre- 
sented as  a  positive  dogma,  which  admits  neither 
of  doubt  nor  of  controversy.  The  truth  is,  how- 
ever, that  both  Evolution  and  special  creation 
are  theories,  and  no  one  who  is  exact  in  the  use 
of  language  can  truthfully  assert  that  either  of 
them  is  anything  more.  Evolution,  I  know,  is 
oftentimes  called  a  proved  doctrine ;  but  no  evolu- 
tionist who  has  any  regard  for  accuracy  of  termi- 
nology would  pretend  that  the  theory  has  passed  all 
the  requirements  of  a  rigid  demonstration,  because 
he  knows  better  than  anyone  else,  that  anything 
approaching  a  mathematical  demonstration  of  Evo- 
lution is  an  impossibility.  The  most  that  the  evo- 
lutionist can  hope  for,  or  that  he  has  hitherto 
attained,  or  is  likely  to  attain,  at  least  for  a  long 
time  to  come,  is  a  certain  degree  of  probability; 
but  such  a  degree  of   probability  as  shall  give  his 

'  See  Compte  Rendu  du  Troisieme  Congres  Scientifique 
des  Catholiques,  Section  d'Anthropologie,  p.  20. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       419 

theory  sufficient  weight  to  command  the  assent  of 
anyone  who  is  competent  to  estimate  the  value 
of  the  evidence  offered  in  its  support.  The  degree 
of  probability  which  already  attaches  to  the  theory 
of  Evolution  is  very  great,  as  all  who  have  taken 
the  trouble  to  investigate  its  claims  must  admit; 
and  every  new  discovery  in  the  realms  of  animate 
nature  but  contributes  towards  placing  the  theory 
on  a  firmer  and  more  impregnable  basis.  '";::,:  = 

Such  being  the  case  the  question  now  is:  Which 
of  the  two  theories  is  the  more  probable,  Evolution 
or  special  creation?  Both  of  them,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, rest  upon  a  certain  number  of  postulates; 
both  of  them  have  much  to  be  said  in  their  fav- 
or, as  both  of  them  may  be  assailed  with  numer- 
ous and  serious  objections.  For  our  present  purposie 
it  will  here  suffice  to  repeat  the  answer  of  the  Abb6 
Guillemet,  who  tells  us  that  Evolution,  as  against 
special  creation,  has  this  in  its  favor,  that  it  ex- 
plains and  coordinates  the  facts  and  phenomena 
of  nature  in  a  most  beautiful  and  simple  manner; 
whereas  the  theory  of  special  creation  not  only 
explains  nothing  and  is  incapable  of  explaining 
anything,  but,  by  its  very  nature,  tends  to  impede 
research,  to  bar  progress,  or,  as  he  phrases  it,  "it 
forces  science  into  a  blind  alley — met  la  science 
dans  une  impasse" 

Genesiac  Days,  Flood,  Fossils  and  Antiquity 
of  Man. 

As  matters  now  stand,  the  case  of  special  cre- 
ation   versus    Evolution    is    analogous    to   several 


420  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Other  questions  which  have  supplied  materials  for 
long  and  acrimonious  controversy.  Thus,  until  the 
last  century  it  was  the  almost  universally  accepted 
belief  that  the  days  of  Genesis  were  real  solar  days 
of  twenty-four  hours  each.  It  was  likewise  the 
general  opinion  that  the  Noachian  Deluge  was  uni- 
versal, not  only  as  to  the  earth's  surface  but  also 
as  to  the  destruction  "of  all  flesh,  wherein  is  the 
breath  of  life,  under  heaven."  And  until  a  few 
decades  ago  it  was  the  current  belief,  that  the  ad- 
vent of  our  race  on  earth  did  not  date  back  much 
farther  than  four  thousand  years  B.  c,  and  that 
the  only  reliable  evidence  we  had  for  the  solution 
of  the  problem  involved,  was  to  be  found  in  certain 
statements  of  the  Sacred  Text.  So,  too,  from  the 
time  of  Aristotle  until  that  of  Palissy,  the  potter, 
we  might  say  even  until  the  time  of  Cuvier,  it  was 
believed  that  fossils  were  but  "  sports  of  nature,"  "re- 
sults of  seminal  air  acting  upon  rocks,"  or  "rejected 
models"  of  the  Creator's  work. 

Now  it  would  probably  be  difficult,  if  not  im- 
possible, to  give  an  absolute  proof  of  the  unsound- 
ness of  these  views,  and  that  for  the  simple  reason  that 
anything  like  a  mathematical  demonstration  is,  by 
the  very  nature  of  the  case,  out  of  question.  Rigor- 
ously speaking,  the  theories  involved  in  the  above 
beliefs,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  that 
regarding  the  antiquity  of  man,  are  susceptible 
neither  of  proof  nor  of  disproof.  The  most  we 
can  have,  at  least  for  the  present,  is  a  greater  or 
less  degree  of  probability,  for  it  is  manifest  that  the 
Almighty,  had  He  so  willed,  could  have  created  the 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        421 

world  as  it  now  is  in  six  ordinary  days.  He  could 
have  created  it  just  as  it  exists  at  present  in  a 
single  instant,  for  He  is  above  and  independent 
of  time.  The  teachings,  however,  of  geology  and 
paleontology  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the  sup- 
position that  He  did  fashion  this  globe  of  ours,  as 
we  now  see  it,  in  six  ordinary  days,  while  it  is  found 
that  there  is  nothing  in  Scripture  which  precludes 
the  view  that  the  days  of  Genesis  were  indefinite 
periods  of  time.  God  could  have  caused  the  flood 
to  cover  the  entire  earth  to  the  height  of  the  highest 
mountain,  and  He  could  thus  have  destroyed  every 
living  thing  except  what  was  preserved  in  the  ark ; 
but  did  He?  Ethnology,  linguistics,  prehistoric 
archaeology,  and  even  Scripture,  supply  us  with 
practically  conclusive  reasons  for  believing  that  He 
did  not.  It  is  within  the  range  of  possibility,  that 
the  four  thousand  and  four  years  allowed  by  Usher 
for  the  interval  which  elapsed  between  the  creation 
of  Adam  and  the  birth  of  Christ,  are  ample  to  meet 
the  demands  of  the  case,  but  it  is  in  the  highest 
degree  improbable.  If  the  evidence  of  history, 
archaeology,  and  cognate  branches  of  science  have 
any  value  at  all,  it  is  almost  demonstrably  certain 
that  the  time  granted  by  Usher  and  his  followers 
is  entirely  inadequate  to  meet  the  many  difficulties 
which  modern  science  has  raised  against  the  accept- 
ance of  such  a  limited  period  since  man's  advent  on 
earth.  And  so,  too,  regarding  fossils.  God  could, 
undoubtedly,  have  created  them  just  as  they  are 
found  in  the  earth's  crust,  but  there  is  no  reason 
for  believing  that  He  did  so,  while  there  are  many 


422  EVOLU TION  A ND  D O C MA . 

and  grave  reasons  for  thinking  that  He  did  not. 
In  the  first  place  all  prima  facie  evidence  is  against 
it.  It  is  contrary  to  the  known  analogy  of  the  Cre- 
ator's methods  of  work  in  other  instances ;  contrary 
to  what  is  a  rational  conception  of  the  Divine  econ- 
omy in  the  plan  of  creation.  It  is  contrary  also  to 
our  ideas  of  God's  wisdom  and  goodness ;  for  to 
suppose  that  fossils  are  not  the  remains  of  forms 
of  life  now  extinct,  to  suppose  that  they  were  cre- 
ated as  we  now  find  them,  would  be  to  suppose 
that  the  Creator  would  have  done  something  which 
was  specially  designed  to  mislead  and  deceive  us. 
Against  such  a  view  we  can  assert  what  Suarez 
affirms  in  another  connection,  that  God  would 
not  have  designedly  led  us  into  error — Incredibile 
est,  Deum  .  .  .  illis  verbis  ad  populum  fuisse 
locutum  quibus  deciperetur.  We  see  fossils  now 
forming,  and  from  what  we  know  of  the  uniformity 
of  nature's  operations  we  conclude  that  in  the  past, 
and  during  the  lapse  of  long  geologic  eras,  fossils 
have  been  produced  through  the  agency  of  natural 
causes  as  they  are  produced  at  present,  and  that, 
consequently,  they  were  not  created  directly  and 
immediately  during  any  of  the  Genesiac  days,  days 
of  twenty-four  hours  each,  as  was  so  long  and  so 
universally  believed  even  by  the  wisest  theolo- 
gians  and  philosophers. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  traditional  views 
rfcspecting  the  six  days  of  creation,  the  Noachian 
Deluge,  the  antiquity  of  the  human  race  and  the 
nature  and  age  of  the  fossil  remains  entombed  in  the 
earth's  crust,  may,  in  a  great  measure,  be  iterated 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        423 

regarding  the  long-accepted  view  of  special  crea- 
tion. It  is  possible,  for  there  is  nothing  in  it 
intrinsically  absurd ;  but  in  the  light  afforded  by 
the  researches  and  discoveries  of  these  latter 
days,  it  is  the  conviction  of  the  great  majority  of 
those  who  have  studied  the  question  with  the 
greatest  care,  and  who  are  the  most  competent 
to  interpret  the  facts  involved,  that  as  between 
the  two  rival  theories,  special  creation  and  Evo- 
lution, the  preponderance  of  probability  is  over- 
whelming in  favor  of  Evolution  of  some  kind, 
but  of  just  what  kind  only  the  future  can  deter- 
mine. 

Evolution,  then,  I  repeat  it,  is  contrary  neither  to 
reason  nor  to  Scripture.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of 
the  divers  theories  of  Evolution  which,  during  these 
latter  times,  have  had  such  a  vogue.  Whether, 
therefore,  we  accept  the  theory  of  extraordinary 
births,  the  saltatory  Evolution  of  Saint-Hilaire  and 
St.  George  Mivart ;  or  Darwin's  theory  of  natural 
selection,  which  takes  account  of  only  infinitesimal 
increments;  or  Weismann's  theory  of  heredity,  which 
traces  specific  changes  to  the  germ-plasm,  we  are 
forced  to  admit  that  the  ultimate  efficient  Cause  of 
all  the  changes  produced,  be  they  slow  or  sudden, 
small  or  great,  is  the  Creator  Himself,  acting  through 
the  agency  of  second  causes,  through  the  forces  and 
virtues  which  He,  Himself,  communicated  to  mat- 
ter in  the  beginning.  Such  being  the  case,  it  is 
obvious  that  Evolution  does  not  exclude  creation, 
and  that  creation  is  not  incompatible  with  Evolu- 
tion. 


424  E  VOL  UTION  A ND  DOGMA . 

Strictly  speaking,  Evolution,  whether  it  progress 
by  saltation  or  by  minute  and  fortuitous  increments, 
as  we  are  wont  to  regard  them,  is,  in  the  last  resort, 
a  kind  of  special  creation,  and,  reason  as  we  may, 
we  can  view  it  in  no  other  light.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  spontaneous  generation,  or  the  Evolution  of 
organic  from  inorganic  matter.  For  secondary  or 
derivative  creation  implies  Evolution  of  some  kind, 
as  Evolution,  whether  rapid  or  operating  through 
untold  aeons,  demands,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  action 
of  intelligence  and  will,  and  presupposes  what  is 
termed  creation  in  a  restricted  sense,  that  is,  forma- 
tion from  preexisting  material.  Our  primary  intu- 
itions, especially  our  ideas  of  causation,  preclude  us 
from  taking  any  other  view  in  the  premises.  As 
reason  and  revelation  teach,  it  was  God  who  created 
the  materials  and  forces  which  made  Evolution  pos- 
sible. "It  was  Mind,"  as  Anaxagoras  saw,  "that 
set  all  things  in  order  "  —  izd^^ra  duxoff/irjffs  v6as ;  that 
from  chaos  educed  a  cosmos  and  gave  to  the  earth 
all  that  infinitude  of  variety  and  beauty  and  har- 
mony which  we  so  much  admire. 

But  not  only  is  Evolution  a  theory  which  is  in 
perfect  accordance  with  science  and  Scripture,  with 
Patristic  and  Scholastic  theology  ;  it  is  likewise  a  the- 
ory which  promises  soon  to  be  the  generally  accepted 
view  ;  the  view  which  will  specially  commend  itself 
not  only  to  Christian  philosophy,  but  also  to  Chris- 
tian apologetics  as  well.  We  have  seen  some  indi- 
cations of  this  in  the  already  quoted  opinions  of  such 
eminent  Catholic  authorities  as  Monsabr^,  D'Hulst, 
Leroy,  De  Lapparent  and  St.  George  Mivart. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       425 

Eminent  Catholics  on  Evolution. 

Geoffrey  Saint-Hilaire,  Cuvier's  great  rival,  and  a 
man  of  profound  religious  sentiments,  looked  upon 
the  succession  of  species,  as  disclosed  by  Evolution, 
as  "  one  of  the  most  glorious  manifestations  of  crea- 
tive power,  and  a  fresh  motive  for  admiration  and 
love."  The  noted  Belgian  geologist,  D'Omalius 
d'Halloy,  as  distinguished  for  his  loyalty  to  the 
Church  as  for  his  eminence  in  science,  declares :  **  It 
appears  to  me  much  more  probable  and  more  con- 
formable to  the  eminent  wisdom  of  the  Creator,  to 
admit  that,  just  as  He  has  given  to  living  beings  the 
faculty  of  reproducing  themselves,  so,  likewise,  has 
He  endowed  them  with  the  power  of  modifying 
themselves  according  to  circumstances,  a  phenome- 
non of  which  nature  affords  us  examples  even  at 
present." ' 

*  "  Sur  Le  Transform  ism  e,"  Bulletin  de  1' Academic  Royale 
de  Belgique,  1873,  tire  a  part,  p.  5. 

The  illustrious  paleontologist,  M.  Albert  Gaudry,  a  member 
of  the  French  Institute  and  a  devoted  son  of  the  Church,  in 
speaking  of  the  plan  of  creation,  "ou  I'Etre  Infini  a  mis  I'em- 
preinte  de  son  unite,"  expresses  himself  as  follows:  "Les  pale- 
ontologistes  ne  sont  pas  d'accord  sur  la  maniere  dont  ce  plan  a 
dte  realise  ;  plusieurs,  considerant  les  nombreuses  lacunes  qui  ex- 
istent encore  dans  la  serie  des  6tres,  croient  a  I'independance  des 
especes,  et  admettent  que  I'Auteurdu  monde  a  fait  apparaitre 
tour  a  tour  les  plantes  et  les  animaux  des  temps  geologtques  de 
maniere  a  simuler  la  filiation  qui  est  dans  sa  pensee ;  d'autres 
savants,  frapp^s,  au  contraire,  de  la  rapid ite  avec  laquelle  les 
lacunes  diminuent,  supposent  que  la  filiation  a  ete  realise  mate- 
riellement,  et  que  Dieu  a  produit  les  etres  des  diverses  ^poques 
en  les  tirant  de  ceux  qui  les  avaient  precedes.  Cette  derniere 
hvpothese  est  celle  que  je  priferc;  mat's qu'on  Vadofte,  ou  qu'on  ne 
I'adofte  pas,  ce  qui  me  parait  bien  certain  c' est  qu^il  y  a  eu  tin 
plan.  Un  jour  viendra  sans  doute  ou  les  paleontologistes  pour- 
rontsaisir  le  plan  qui  a  preside  au  d^veloppement  de  la  vie.  Ce 
sera  la  un  beau  jour  pour  eux,  car,  s'il  y  a  tant  de  magnifi- 
cence dans  les  details  de  la  nature,  il  ne  doit  pas  y  en  avoir 


426  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Commenting  on  this  question,  the  learned  Belgian 
Jesuit,  Father  Bellinck,  asks  :  "  What  matters  it  if 
there  have  been  creations  prior  to  that  which  Moses 
describes  :  what  matters  it  whether  the  periods  re- 
quired for  the  genesis  of  the  universe  were  days  or 
epochs  ;  whether  the  apparition  of  man  on  the  earth 
was  at  an  earlier  or  later  date  ;  whether  animals  have 
preserved  their  primitive  forms,  or  whether  they  have 
undergone  gradual  transformations;  whether  even 
the  body  of  man  has  experienced  modifications,  and, 
finally,  what  matters  it  whether,  in  virtue  of  the 
Creative  Will,  inorganic  matter  be  able  or  not  to 
produce  plants  and  animals  spontaneously? 

"All  these  questions  are  given  over  to  the  disputes 
of  men,  and  it  is  for  science  to  distinguish  truth  from 
error."* 

These  are  pertinent  questions.  W^hat  matters  it, 
indeed,  from  the  standpoint  of  Catholic  Dogma,  if 
they  are  all  answered  in  the  affirmative?  If  science 
should  eventually  demonstrate  that  spontaneous  gen- 
eration is  probable,  or  has  actually  occurred,  or  is 
occurring  in  our  own  day,  what  matters  it  ?  The 
Fathers  and  Schoolmen  found  no  difficulty  in  be- 
lieving in  abiogenesis,  and  most  of  them,  if  not  all 
of  them,  believed  in  it  so  far  as  it  concerned  the 
lower  forms  of  life.  More  than  this.  As  we  learned 
in  the  beginning  of  our  work,  spontaneous  generation 
was  almost  universally  accepted  until  about  a  cen- 


moins  dans  leur  agencement  generale."  "  Les  Enchainements 
du  Monde  Animal  dans  les  Temps  Geologiques,"  introduc- 
tion, p.  3. 

*  Vid.  "  Revue  des  Etudes  Historiques  et  Litteiaires,'"  1864. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        427 

tury  ago.  Materialists  then  bethought  themselves 
that  abiogenesis  might  be  urged  as  an  argument  in 
favor  of  Materialism.  Theologians,  in  their  eager- 
ness to  answer  the  objection,  denied  the  fact  instead 
of  denying  the  inference.  Later  on,  men  of  science 
discovered  that  so  far  as  evidence  goes  abiogenesis 
is  not  a  fact,  and,  still  later,  it  dawned  upon  a  few 
theologians  that  whether  a  fact  or  not,  it  is  quite 
immaterial  so  far  as  theology  is  concerned.  Whether 
non-living  matter  may  ever  give  rise  to  living  mat- 
ter, science  is  unable  to  state  with  absolute  certainty, 
but  should  it  ultimately  be  shown  that  spontaneous 
generation  is  a  fact,  we  should  simply  say  with  the 
Fathers  and  Doctors  of  the  Church :  The  Creator 
gave  to  inorganic  matter  the  power,  under  suitable 
conditions,  of  evolving  itself  into  organic  matter,  and 
thus  science  and  Dogma  would  be  in  harmony.* 

'  The  illustrious  Gladstone  referring  to  this  subject  in  his 
admirable  introduction  to  the  "  People's  Bible  History,"  writes 
as  follows  :  "Suppose  for  a  moment  that  it  were  found,  or  could 
be  granted  in  the  augmentation  of  science  that  the  first  and  lowest 
forms  of  life  had  been  evolved  from  lifeless  matter  as  their  im- 
mediate antecedent.  What  statement  of  Holy  Scripture  would 
be  shaken  by  the  discovery  ?  What  would  it  prove  to  us,  ex- 
cept that  there  had  been  given  to  certain  inanimate  substances 
the  power,  when  they  were  brought  into  certain  combinations, 
of  reappearing  in  some  of  the  low  forms  which  live,  but  live 
without  any  of  the  worthier  prerogatives  of  life  ?  No  conclu- 
sion would  follow  for  reasonable  men,  except  the  perfectly 
rational  conclusion  that  the  Almighty  had  seen  fit  to  endow 
with  certain  powers  in  particular  circumstances,  and  to  with- 
hold from  them  in  other  circumstances,  the  material  elements 
which  He  had  created,  and  of  which  it  was  surely  for  Him  to 
determine  the  conditions  of  existence  and  productive  power, 
and  the  sphere  and  manner  of  their  operation." 

In  his  "  Psychology,"  Rosmini  has  a  couple  of  chapters  on 
spontaneous  generation  and  the  animation  of  the  elements  of 
matter,  which  the  reader  will  find  curious  and  interesting.  Re- 
ferring to  spontaneous  generation  as  an   argument  in  favor  of 


428  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

Faith   Has  Nothing  to  Apprehend  from  Evolution.     A\\ 

Suppose,  then,  that  a  demonstrative  proof  of  the 
theory  of  Evolution  should  eventually  be  given,  a 
proof  such  as  would  satisfy  the  most  exacting  and 
the  most  skeptical,  it  is  evident,  from  what  has  al- 
ready been  stated,  that  Catholic  Dogma  would  re- 
main absolutely  intact  and  unchanged.  Individual 
theorists  would  be  obliged  to  accommodate  their 
views  to  the  facts  of  nature,  but  the  doctrines  of 
the  Church  would  not  be  affected  in  the  slightest. 
The  hypothesis  of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Thomas  ' 
Aquinas  would  then  become  a  thesis,  and  all  reason- 
able and  consistent  men  would  yield  ready,  uncon- 
ditional and  unequivocal  assent. 

And  suppose,  further,  that  in  the  course  of  time 
science  shall  demonstrate — a  most  highly  improbable 
event — the  animal  origin  of  man  as  to  his  body. 
There  need,  even   then,  be  no  anxiety  so  far  as  the 

Materialism,  he  says :  "  If  the  fact  of  spontaneous  generation 
does  really  occur  in  nature,  it  does  not  follow,  as  Cabanis  main- 
tained, that  pure  matter  of  itself  passes  into  life.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  must  say  that  the  matter  itself  was  animate,  and  that 
the  principle  of  life  which  was  in  it,  operating  in  its  matter, 
produced  organism.  In  this  way  this  great  fact  would  be  the 
most  manifest  proof  of  an  immaterial  principle."  Again  :  "  Spon- 
taneous generations  would  never  prove  that  matter  was  dead ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  would  prove  that  it  was  alive."  Further 
on  he  declares  that  "  if  there  should  suddenly  leap  forth  from 
the  ground  a  full-grown  mastodon,  or  a  rhinoceros,  all  that 
would  legitimately  follow  from  the  fact  would  be,  that  there  was 
a  vital  principle  in  the  ground,  and  that  this  was  the  secret  or- 
ganizer of  these  huge  bodies."     Book  IV,  chap.  xiv. 

As  for  Pantheism,  he  asserts  in  Book  IV,  chap,  xv  :  "  It  is 
altogether  indifferent  whether  we  admit  that  the  animate  sub- 
stances in  the  universe  are  more  or  fewer,  some  or  all,  so  long 
as  we  admit  that  they  are  created,  and,  therefore,  altogether 
distinct  from  the  Creator,  Pantheisai  is  excluded." 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       429 

truths  of  faith  are  concerned.  Proving  that  the  body 
of  the  common  ancestor  of  humanity  is  descended 
from  some  higher  form  of  ape,  or  from  some  extinct 
anthropopithecus,  would  not  necessarily  contravene 
either  the  declarations  of  Genesis,  or  the  principles 
regarding  derivative  creation  which  found  acceptance 
with  the  greatest  of  the  Church's  Fathers  and  Doc- 
tors. 

Mr.  Gladstone,  in  the  work  just  quoted  from, 
expresses  the  same  idea  with  characteristic  force  and 
lucidity.  "  If,"  he  says,  "while  Genesis  asserts  a  sepa- 
rate creation  of  man,  science  should  eventually  prove 
that  man  sprang,  by  a  countless  multitude  of  indefi- 
nitely small  variations,  from  a  lower,  and  even  from 
the  lowest  ancestry,  the  statement  of  the  great 
chapter  would  still  remain  undisturbed.  For  every 
one  of  those  variations,  however  minute,  is  abso- 
lutely separate,  in  the  points  wherein  it  varies,  from 
what  followed  and  also  from  what  preceded  it;  is 
in  fact  and  in  effect  a  distinct  or  separate  creation. 
And  the  fact  that  the  variation  is  so  small  that, 
taken  singly,  our  use  may  not  be  to  reckon  it,  is 
nothing  whatever  to  the  purpose.  For  it  is  the  finite- 
ness  of  our  faculties  which  shuts  us  off  by  a  barrier 
downward,  beyond  a  certain  limit,  from  the  small, 
as  it  shuts  us  off  by  a  barrier  upward  from  the 
great;  whereas  for  Him  whose  faculties  are  infinite, 
the  small  and  the  great  are,  like  the  light  and  the 
darkness,  'both  alike,'  and  if  man  came  up  by  in- 
numerable stages  from  a  low  origin  to  the  im- 
age of  God,  it  is  God  only  who  can  say,  as  He 
has  said  in  other  cases,  which  of  those  stages  may 


430  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

be  worthy  to  be  noted  with  the  distinctive  name 
of  creation,  and  at  what  point  of  the  ascent  man 
could  first  be  justly  said  to  exhibit  the  image  of 
God." 

But  the  derivation  of  man  from  the  ape,  we  are 
told,  degrades  man.  Not  at  all.  It  would  be  truer 
to  say  that  such  derivation  ennobles  the  ape.  Sen- 
timent aside,  it  is  quite  unimportant  to  the  Chris- 
tian "whether  he  is  to  trace  back  his  pedigree 
directly  or  indirectly  to  the  dust."  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi,  as  we  learn  from  his  life,  "  called  the  birds 
his  brothers."  Whether  he  was  correct,  either  theo- 
logically or  zoologically,  he  was  plainly  free  from 
that  fear  of  being  mistaken  for  an  ape  which  haunts 
so  many  in  these  modern  times.  Perfectly  sure 
that  he,  himself,  was  a  spiritual  being,  he  thought 
it  at  least  possible  that  birds  might  be  spiritual 
beings,  likewise  incarnate  like  himself  in  mortal 
flesh;  and  saw  no  degradation  to  the  dignity  of 
human  nature  in  claiming  kindred  lovingly  with 
creatures  so  beautiful,  so  wonderful,  who,  as  he  fan- 
cied, "praised  God  in  the  forest,  even  as  angels  did 
in  heaven." ' 


'  Kingsley,  "  Prose  Idylls,"  pp.  24  et  seq.  Ruskin  in  refer- 
ring to  the  matter  in  his  "Aratra  Pentelici,"  expresses  himself 
with  characteristic  force  and  originality.  "  Whether,"  he  says, 
"your  Creator  shaped  you  with  fingers  or  tools,  as  a  sculptor 
would  a  lump  of  clay,  or  gradually  raised  you  to  manhood 
through  a  series  of  inferior  forms,  is  only  of  moment  to  you  in 
this  respect,  that,  in  the  one  case,  you  cannot  expect  your 
children  to  be  nobler  creatures  than  yourselves ;  in  the  other, 
every  act  and  thought  of  your  present  life  may  be  hastening  the 
advent  of  a  race  which  will  look  back  to  you,  their  fathers — and 
you  ought,  at  least,  to  have  retained  the  dignity  of  desiring  that 
it  may  be  so — with  incredulous  disdain." 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.       431 


Misapprehensions  Regarding  Evolution. 

Many,  it  may  here  be  observed,  look  on  the  the- 
ory of  Evolution  with  suspicion,  because  they  fail 
to  understand  its  true  significance.  They  seem  to 
think  that  it  is  an  attempt  to  account  for  the  origin 
of  things  when,  in  reality,  it  deals  only  with  their 
historical  development.  It  deals  not  with  creation, 
with  the  origin  of  things,  but  with  the  modus  creandi, 
or,  rather,  with  the  modus  formandi,  after  the  uni- 
verse was  called  into  existence  by  Divine  Omnipo- 
tence. Evolution,  then,  postulates  creation  as  an 
intellectual  necessity,  for  if  there  had  not  been  a 
creation  there  would  have  been  nothing  to  evolve, 
and  Evolution  would,  therefore,  have  been  an  im- 
possibility. 

And  for  the  same  reason,  Evolution  postulates 
and  must  postulate,  a  Creator,  the  sovereign  Lord 
of  all  things,  the  Cause  of  causes,  the  terminus  a 
quo  as  well  as  the  terminus  ad  quem  of  all  that  exists 
or  can  exist.  But  Evolution  postulates  still  more. 
In  order  that  Evolution  might  be  at  all  possible  it 
was  necessary  that  there  should  have  been  not  only 
an  antecedent  creation  ex  nihilo,  but  also  that  there 
should  have  been  an  antecedent  involution,  or  a  crea- 
tion in  potentia.  To  suppose  that  simple  brute 
matter  could,  by  its  own  motion  or  by  any  power 
inherent  in  matter  as  such,  have  been  the  sole  effi- 
cient cause  of  the  Evolution  of  organic  from  inor- 
ganic matter,  of  the  higher  from  the  lower  forms  of 
life,  of  the  rational  from  the  irrational  creature,  is 


432  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

to  suppose  that  a  thing  can  give  what  it  does  not 
possess,  that  the  greater  is  contained  in  the  less,  the 
superior  in  the  inferior,  the  whole  in  a  part. 

No  mere  mechanical  theory,  therefore,  however 
ingenious,  is  competent  to  explain  the  simplest  fact 
of  development.  Not  only  is  such  a  theory  unable  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  a  speck  of  protoplasm,  or 
the  germination  of  a  seed,  but  it  is  equally  incom- 
petent to  assign  a  reason  for  the  formation  of  the 
smallest  crystal  or  the  simplest  chemical  compound. 
Hence,  to  be  philosophically  valid,  Evolution  must 
postulate  a  Creator  not  only  for  the  material  which 
is  evolved,  but  it  must  also  postulate  a  Creator,  Causa 
causarum,  for  the  power  or  agency  which  makes  any 
development  possible.  God,  then,  not  only  created 
matter  in  the  beginning,  but  He  gave  it  the  power 
of  evolving  into  all  forms  it  has  since  assumed  or 
ever  shall  assume. 

But  this  is  not  all.  In  order  to  have  an  intelli- 
gible theory  of  Evolution,  a  theory  that  can  meet 
the  exacting  demands  of  a  sound  philosophy  as  well 
as  of  a  true  theology,  still  another  postulate  is  neces- 
sary. We  must  hold  not  only  that  there  was  an  actual 
creation  of  matter  in  the  beginning,  that  there  was 
a  potential  creation  which  rendered  matter  capable 
of  Evolution,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  impressed 
by  God  on  matter,  but  we  must  also  believe  that 
creative  action  and  influence  still  persist,  that  they 
always  have  persisted  from  the  dawn  of  creation, 
that  they,  and  they  alone,  have  been  eflficient  in  all 
the  countless  stages  of  evolutionary  progress  from 
atoms  to  monads,  from  monads  to  man. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        433 

This  ever-present  action  of  the  Deity,  this  im- 
manence of  His  in  the  work  of  His  hands,  this 
continuing  in  existence  and  developing  of  the  crea- 
tures He  has  made,  is  what  St.  Thomas  calls  the  "  Di- 
vine administration,"  and  what  is  ordinarily  known 
as  Providence.  It  connotes  the  active  and  constant 
cooperation  of  the  Creator  with  the  creature,  and 
implies  that  if  the  multitudinous  forms  of  terres- 
trial life  have  been  evolved  from  the  potentiality  of 
matter,  they  have  been  so  evolved  because  matter 
was  in  the  first  instance  proximately  disposed  for 
Evolution  by  God  Himself,  and  has  ever  remained 
so  disposed.  To  say  that  God  created  the  universe 
in  the  beginning,  and  that  He  gave  matter  the 
power  of  developing  into  all  the  myriad  forms  it 
subsequently  exhibited,  but  that  after  doing  this 
He  had  no  further  care  for  what  He  had  brought 
into  existence,  would  be  equivalent  to  indorsing 
the  Deism  of  Hume,  or  to  affirming  the  old  pagan 
notion  according  to  which  God,  after  creating  the 
world,  withdrew  from  it  and  left  it  to  itself. 

Well,  then,  can  we  say  of  Evolution  what  Dr. 
Martineau  says  of  science,  that  it  "discloses  the 
method  of  the  world,  not  its  cause ;  religion,  its  cause 
and  not  its  method." '  Evolution  is  the  grand  and 
stately  march  of  creative  energy,  the  sublime  mani- 
festation of  what  Claude  Bernard  calls  "the  first, 
creative,  legislative  and  directing  Cause."'  In  it  we 
have  constantly  before  our  eyes  the  daily  miracles. 


^  See  Essay  on  Science,  Nescience,  Faith. 

^  "  En  resumd,  il  y  a  dans  un  ph^nom^ne  vital,  comme  dans 
tout  autre  phenom^ne  naturel,  deux  ordres  de  causes :  d'abord 

E.— a8 


434  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

quotidiana  Dei  niiracula,  of  which  St.  Augustine 
speaks,  and  through  it  we  are  vouchsafed  a  glimpse, 
as  it  were,  of  the  operation  of  Providence  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  world. 

Evolution,  therefore,  is  neither  a  "  philosophy  of 
mud,"  nor  "  a  gospel  of  dirt,"  as  it  has  been  denom- 
inated. So  far,  indeed,  is  this  from  being  the  case 
that,  when  properly  understood,  it  is  found  to  be  a 
strong  and  useful  ally  of  Catholic  Dogma.  For  if  Evo- 
lution be  true,  the  existence  of  God  and  an  original 
creation  follow  as  necessary  inferences.  *'A  true  de- 
velopment," as  has  truthfully  been  asserted,  "  implies 
a  terminus  a  quo  as  well  as  a  terminus  ad  quern.  If, 
then,  Evolution  is  true,  an  absolute  beginning,  how- 
ever unthinkable,  is  probable  ;" —  I  should  say  cer- 
tain— "  the  eternity  of  matter  is  inconsistent  with 
scientific  Evolution."  ' 

'*  Nature,"  Pascal  somewhere  says,  "  confounds 
the  Pyrrhonist,  and  reason,  the  dogmatist."  Evolu- 
tion, we  can  declare  with  equal  truth,  confounds  the 
agnostic,  and  science,  the  atheist.  For,  as  an  Eng- 
lish positivist  has  observed  :  "  You  cannot  make  the 
slightest  concession  to  metaphysics  without  ending  in 
a  theology,"  a  statement  which  is  tantamount  to  the 


une  cause  premiere,  creatrice,  legislative  et  directrice  de  la  vie, 
et  inaccessible  a  nos  connaissances  ;  ensuite  une  cause  prochaine, 
ou  executive,  du  phenomene  vital,  qui  est  toujours  de  nature 
physico-chimique  et  tombe  dans  le  domaine  de  I'experimenta- 
tion.  La  cause  premiere  de  la  vie  donne  devolution  ou  la  crea- 
tion de  la  machine  organisee;  mais  la  machine,  une  fois  creee, 
fonctionne  en  vertu  des  proprietes  de  ses  elements  constituants 
et  sous  Tinfluence  des  conditions  physico-chimiques  qui  agissent 
sur  eux."     "  La  Science  Experimentale,"  p.  53. 

*  Vid.  Moore's  "  Science  and  the  Faith,"  p.  229. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        435 

admission  that  "  If  once  you  allow  yourself  to  think 
of  the  origin  and  end  of  things,  you  will  have  to 
believe  in  a  God."  And  the  God  you  will  have  to 
believe  in  is  not  an  abstract  God,  an  unknowable  ^r", 
a  mere  metaphysical  deity,  "  defecated  to  a  pure 
transparency,"  but  a  personal  God,  a  merciful  and 
loving  Father. 

As  to  man,  Evolution,  far  from  depriving  him 
of  his  high  estate,  confirms  him  in  it,  and  that,  too, 
by  the  strongest  and  noblest  of  titles.  It  recog- 
nizes that  although  descended  from  humble  lineage, 
he  is  "  the  beauty  of  the  world,  and  the  paragon 
of  animals;"  that  although  from  dust — tracing  his 
lineage  back  to  its  first  beginnings — he  is  of 
the  "quintessence  of  dust."  It  teaches,  and  in 
the  most  eloquent  language,  that  he  is  the  highest 
term  of  a  long  and  majestic  development,  and  re- 
places him  "  in  his  old  position  of  headship  in 
the  universe,  even  as  in  the  days  of  Dante  and 
Aquinas." 

Evolution  an   Ennobling   Conception. 

And  as  Evolution  ennobles  our  conceptions  of 
God  and  of  man,  so  also  does  it  permit  us  to  detect 
new  beauties,  and  discover  new  lessons,  in  a  world 
that,  according  to  the  agnostic  and  monistic  views,  is 
so  dark  and  hopeless.  To  the  one  who  says  there  is 
no  God,  "  the  immeasurable  universe,"  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Jean  Paul,  "has  become  but  a  cold  mass 
of  iron,  which  hides  an  eternity  without  form  and 
void." 


436  EVOLU riON  A ND  D OGMA . 

To  the  theistic  evolutionist,  however,  all  is  in- 
stinct with  invitations  to  a  higher  life  and  a  hap- 
pier existence  in  the  future  ;  all  is  vocal  with  hymns 
of  praise  and  benediction.  Everything  is  a  part  of 
a  grand  unity  betokening  an  omnipotent  Creator.  All 
is  foresight,  purpose,  wisdom.  We  have  the  entire 
history  of  the  world  and  of  all  systems  of  worlds, 
"  gathered,  as  it  were,  into  one  original,  creative  act, 
from  which  the  infinite  variety  of  the  universe  has 
come,  and  more  is  coming  yet."  '  And  God's  hand 
is  seen  in  the  least  as  in  the  greatest.  His  power 
and  goodness  are  disclosed  in  the  beauteous  crystal- 
line form  of  the  snow-flake,  in  the  delicate  texture, 
fragrance  and  color  of  the  rose,  in  the  marvelous 
pencilings  of  the  butterfly's  wing,  in  the  gladsome 
and  melodious  notes  of  the  lark  and  the  thrush,  in 
the  tiniest  morning  dew-drop  with  all  its  gorgeous 
prismatic  hues  and  wondrous  hidden  mysteries. 
All  are  pregnant  with  truths  of  the  highest  order, 
and  calculated  to  inspire  courage,  and  to  strengthen 
our  hope  in  faith's  promise  of  a  blissful  immor- 
tality. 

The  Divine  it  is  which  holds  all  things  together : 
Ttepie^st  TO  f^etuv  ttjv  oXtjv  yuatv,*  So  taught  the  old 
Greek  philosophy  as  reported  by  the  most  gifted  of 
her  votaries.  And  this  teaching  of  the  sages  of  days 
long  past,  is  extended  and  illuminated  by  the  far- 
reaching  generalization  of   Evolution,  in  a   manner 

W id.  Bishop  Temple's  "  The  Relations  Between  Religion 
and  Science,"  p.  ii6. 

"^  Tlapadedorac  de  vn6  tuv  apxo.i-(^v  nai  nafnzaJMiuv  kv  fiiOov  ax'ifici'i- 
KaTaXE?ueifi/uEva  rois  varepov,  b~i  nepitxEL  to  ^elov  ttiv  b'/.ijv  (piacv.  Aris- 
totle, "  Metaphysics,"  XI,  viii. 


REFLECTIONS  AND  CONCLUSION.        437 

that  is  daily  becoming  more  evident  and  remarkable. 
But  what  Greek  philosophy  faintly  discerned,  and 
what  Evolution  distinctly  enunciates,  is  rendered 
gloriously  manifest  by  the  declaration  of  revealed 
truth,  and  by  the  doctrines  of  Him  who  is  the  Light 
of  the  World. 

Science  and  Evolution  tell  us  of  the  transcend- 
ence and  immanence  of  the  First  Cause,  of  the  Cause 
of  causes,  the  Author  of  all  the  order  and  beauty 
in  the  world,  but  it  is  revelation  which  furnishes  us 
with  the  strongest  evidence  of  the  relations  between 
the  natural  and  supernatural  orders,  and  brings  out 
in  the  boldest  relief  the  absolute  dependence  of  the 
creature  on  its  Maker.  It  is  faith  which  teaches  us 
how  God  "binds  all  together  into  Himself;"  how 
He  quickens  and  sustains  "each  thing  separately, 
and  all  as  collected  in  one." 

I  can,  indeed,  no  better  express  the  ideas  which 
Evolution  so  beautifully  shadows  forth,  nor  can  I 
more  happily  conclude  this  long  discussion  than  by 
appropriating  the  words  used  long  ago  by  that  noble 
champion  of  the  faith,  St.  Athanasius.  "As  the 
musician,"  says  the  great  Alexandrine  Doctor,  in  his 
"  Oratio  Contra  Gentiles,"  "  having  tuned  his  lyre,  and 
harmonized  together  the  high  with  the  low  notes, 
and  the  middle  notes  with  the  extremes,  makes  the 
resulting  music  one ;  so  the  Wisdom  of  God,  grasp- 
ing the  universe  like  a  lyre,  blending  the  things  of 
air  with  those  of  earth,  and  the  things  of  heaven 
with  those  of  air,  binding  together  the  whole  and 
the  parts,  and  ordering  all  by  His  counsel  and  His 
will,  makes  the  world  itself  and  its  appointed  order 


i38  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

one  in  fair  and  harmonious  perfection ;  yet  He, 
Himself,  moving  all  things,  remains  unmoved  with 
the  Father." ' 


'  Otov  yap  rl  tls  2.vpav  p.ov(!iK6s  apfwaafisvos  koi  to,  ^apea  toIs  o^lai, 
KOI  TO.  /liaa  toIs  OKpois,  rrj  rex^V  owayayuv  ev  to  (7T//iaiv6iuevov  fdAos 
airoT£?Miri.  ovtus  Kai  ij  tov  Qeov  2o^/'o,  to  o7mv  us  7vpav  iTrtx*^,  koi  to 
£V  af-pi  TOIS  ettI  yf/s  ox<vayayuv,  koi  to.  h  ovpavu  toIs  If  atpi,  koc  tu  oTm. 
Tols  KUTO.  fiepos  m>vd—Tuv,  Koi  ntpiayuv  tu  eavrov  voi/fiaTi  koi  ■^e/.tjfw.Tt, 
eva  TOV  Kdafiov  Koi  /iiav  t/ji'  tovtov  tu^iv  anoTE^xi,  Ka/.us  koi  ^pfwafievus, 
aiiTos  fiev  atav?/Tus  fisvuv  irapa  tu  HaTpi.     Sec.  XLII. 


Authors  and  Works 

CITED  IN 

'EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA." 


Abubacer,  Arabian  scientist,  "The  Nature-Man." 
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"Lake    Superior;"    "Methods   of   Study   in 

Natural  History." 
Allen,  Grant,  Canadian  litterateur  and  scientist. 
Anaxagoras,  Greek  philosopher. 
AnAXIMANDER,  Greek  mathematician. 
Anaximenes,  Greek  historian. 
Argyll,  Duke  of  (8th),  "  The  Unity  of  Nature." 
Aristotle,   "Physics;"    "History    of    Animals;" 

"  Metaphysics." 
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Litteram ;  "    "  De    Libero    Arbitrio  ;  "    "  De 

Anima  et  ejus  Origine  ;  "    "  Retractationes." 
AuRELius,  Marcus,  "  Meditations." 
AVEMPACE,  Arabian  philosopher. 
AviCENNA,  Arabian  physician. 

Babington,  Chas.  C,  British  botanist. 
Bacon,  Francis,  Lord,  "  Novum  Organum." 

(439) 


440  EVOLU TION  A ND  DOGMA . 

Baer,  Karl  E.  von,  Russian  naturalist. 

Baird,  Spencer  F.,  American  naturalist. 

Balfour,  Arthur  J.,  "  Foundations  of  Belief." 

Barrande,  Joachim,  "  Syst^me  Silurien  de  la 
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Barry,  Alfred,  "  Some  Lights  of  Science  on  the 
Faith." 

Bastian,  Henry  C,  English  scientist. 

Bateson,  William,  British  naturalist. 

Bellinck,  Father,  S.  J.,  art.  in  "  fitudes  Histor- 
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Beneden,  p.  J.  VAN,  "Animal  Parasites  and  Mess- 
mates." 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  English  philosopher. 

Berkeley,  Bishop  George,  British  philosopher. 

Bernard,  Claude,  "  La  Science  Expdrimentale." 

Berzelius,  Baron  Johan  J.,  Swedish  chemist. 

Blainville,  H.  M.  de,  French  naturalist. 

Blanchard,  Emile,  "  La  Vie  des  £tres  Animus." 

Bonnet,  Charles,  Swiss  naturalist. 

Broca,  Paul,  French  surgeon. 

Brunetiere,  Ferdinand,  art.  in  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  Italian  philosopher. 

Bryant,  Wm.  Cullen. 

Buchner,  F.  Karl,  "Force  and  Matter;"  "  Man  in 

the  Past,  Present  and  Future." 
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Burmeister,  Hermann,  German  naturalist. 
Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  British  prelate. 


AUTHORS  AND  WORKS.  441 

Cabanis,  Pierre  J.,  French  physicist. 
Calmet,  Dom  a.,  French  Benedictine. 
Camper,  Pieter,  Dutch  anatomist. 
Candolle,  Alphonse  de,  Swiss  botanist. 
Cano,  Melchior,  "  Locorum  Theolog.  Libri." 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  "  Sartor  Resartus." 
Carruthers,  William,  Scotch  naturalist. 
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Creation." 
Chrysostom,  St.  John. 
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Comte,  Auguste,  French  philosopher. 
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CuviER,  Baron  GEORGES, "  Regne  Animal ;"  "  Le9ons 

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r\ARWiN,  Charles,  "The  Origin  of  Species;"  "Ani- 
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Darwin,  Erasmus,  "Temple  of  Nature;"  "Zoon- 
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Davidson,  Prof.,  English  scientist. 

Dawson,  Sir  J.  W.,  "  Story  of  the  Earth  and  Man." 

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Diercks,  Father,  S.  J.,  Flemish  naturalist, 
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442  E  VOL  UTION  A  ND  D  OGMA . 

Diogenes  of  Appolonia,  Greek  philosopher. 
DuiLHE,  DE  St.  Projet,  French  apologist. 

Ehrenberg,  Chr.  G.,  German  naturalist. 
Empedocles,  Greek  philosopher, 
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Fabricius,  Hieronymus,  Italian  anatomist. 
Falloppio,  G.,  of  Padua,  Italian  anatomist. 
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Galen,  Greek  physician. 

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Goethe,  J.  W.  von. 

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A  UTHORS  AND  WORKS.  443 

U^CKEL,  Ernst,  •'  The  Evolution  of  Man  ;  "  "Con- 
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Harper,  Father  T.  N.,  S.  J.,  "  Metaphysics  of  the 
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Harrison,  Frederick,  British  essayist. 

Hartmann,  Carl  R.  von,  German  philosopher. 

Harvey,  Dr.  William. 

Hegel,  Georg,  German  philosopher. 

Heraclitus,  Greek  philosopher. 

Herder,  Johan  G.  von,  German  critic. 

Herschel,  Sir  William,  British  astronomer. 

Hewit,  V.  Rev.  A.  F.,  "The  Christian  Agnostic 
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HOBBES,  Thomas,  English  philosopher. 

HOLBACH,  Baron  Paul  d*,  French  philosopher. 

Holy  Bible. 

Homer,  "  Iliad." 

Hooker,  Sir  Joseph,  English  botanist. 

HOWORTH,  Sir  Henry  H.,  "The  Mammoth  and 
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HUGGINS,  William,  English  astronomer. 

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HuLST,  Mgr.  Maurice  d'. 

Hume,  David,  Scotch  philosopher. 

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444  EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 

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JUSSIEU,  Antoine  L.  de,  "  Genera  Plantarum." 

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KiRWAN,  M.  DE,  "  Le  Transformisme  et  la  Discus- 
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KOLLIKER,  Rudolf  A.,  Swiss  histologist. 

Lacepede,  Comte  B.  DE,  French  naturalist. 

Lactantius,  "  De  Ira  Dei." 

Lamarck,  J.  B.  de,  "  Histoire  Naturelle  ;  "  "  Phil- 
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Lanessan,  French  naturalist. 

Lankester,  Ray,  English  zoologist. 

Laplace,  Marquis  Pierre  de,  French  astronomer. 

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AUTHORS  AND  WORKS.  445 

Lenormant,    Franqois,    "Origines    de   I'Histoire 

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Leo  XIII,  Pope,  Encyclicals  "  yEterni  Patris;  "  and 

"  Providentissimus  Deus." 
Leroy,  P^re,  "  L'Evolution  Restreinte  aux  Esp^ces 

Organiques." 
Leucippus,  Greek  philosopher. 
Leuckart,  Karl,  German  zoologist. 
Lewes,  George  Henry,  English  litterateur. 
LlEBiG,  Baron  JUSTUS  VON,  German  chemist. 
Lilly,   W.   S.,   English    Litterateur,    "  The    Great 

Enigma." 
LlNN^US,    Carolus,    "Amaenitates     Academicae," 

"  Philosophia  Botanica;  "  "  Systema  Naturae." 
LOGKE,  John,  English  philosopher. 
LocKYER,  Joseph,  British  astronomer. 
Longfellow,  Henry  W. 

Lucas,  Rev.  Geo.  J.,  "Agnosticism  and  Religion." 
Lucretius,  "  De  Rerum  Natura." 
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"  Manual  of  Geology." 

|V\cCosh,  Dr.  James,  "  Religious  Aspect  of  Evo- 
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Maimonides,  rabbinical  philosopher. 

MaisonNEUVE,  Dr.,  "Creation  et  fivolution." 

Malpighi,  Marcello,  Italian  anatomist. 

Mansel,  Dean,  "  The  Limits  of  Religious  Thought." 

Marsh,  Prof.  O.  C.,  American  paleontologist. 

Marshall,  Arthur.  M.,  "  Lectures  on  the  Darwin- 
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446  E  VOL  U  TION  A  ND  D  OGMA . 

Maupertuis,  Pierre  de,  French  philosopher. 

Mill,  J.  Stuart,  British  philosopher. 

Milne-Edwards,  H.,  French  naturalist. 

Milton,  John,  "  Paradise  Lost." 

Mir,  Padre,  S.  J. 

MlVART,  St.  George,  "  Genesis  of  Species  ;  "  "  On 

Truth  ;  "  "  Lessons  from  Nature." 
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MuLLER,  F.  Max,  German  English  philologist. 
Muller,  Fritz,  German  ethnologist. 
MuLLER,  Johann,  German  physicist. 


MADAILLAC,    Marquis    DE,    "  Le    Problemi 
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;me  de  la 

etc.,  in 

Comptes  Rendus. 

Nageli,  Prof.  Karl  von,  German  botanist. 
Naudin,  Charles,  French  botanist. 
Newman,  Cardinal  Henry,  "  Lectures  on  Univer- 
sity Subjects." 
Nott,  Josiah  C,  American  ethnologist. 

Oken,  Lorenz,  German  naturalist. 
Olivi,  of  Cremona. 

Omar  "the  Learned,"  Arabian  scholar. 
Origen. 

Osborn,  H.,  "From  the  Greeks  to  Darwin." 
Ovid,  "  Metamorphoses." 

Owen,  Prof.  Richard,  "Anatomy  of  Vertebrates ;" 
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Paley,  "  Natural  Theology." 
Palissy,  Bernard. 


AUTHORS  AND   WORKS.  447 

Pascal,  Blaise,  "  Pens^es." 

Pasteur,  Louis,  French  bacteriologist. 

Plato. 

Pliny,  the  elder. 

POUCHET,  Henri  C,  French  naturalist. 

POUSSIN,  C.  DE  la  ValljSe,  "  Pal^ontologie  et  Dar- 

winisme." 
Powell,  Baden,  English  apologist  and  scientist. 

Pythagoras. 

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Fran^ais  ;  "  "  The  Human  Species,"  xvl  Jour- 
nal des  Savants. 

Ray,  John,  "  Historia  Plantarum." 

Reaumur,  Rene  de,  F'rench  physicist. 

Redi,  Francesco,  "  Esperienze  intorno  alia  Gen- 
erazione  degl*  Insetti." 

Renan,  Ernest,  "  L'Avenir  de  la  Science." 

Robin,  Dr.  Charles  P.,  French  anatomist. 

Robinet,  J.  F.,  French  physician. 

Romanes,  Prof.  George,  "  Darwin  and  After  Dar- 
win ; "  "  Scientific  Evidence  of  Organic  Evo- 
lution ;  "  "  Thoughts  on  Religion." 

ROSMINI,  Prof.,  "  Psychology." 

RUSKIN,  John,  "Aratra  Pentelici." 

RUTIMEYER,  Louis,  Swiss  naturalist. 

CAINT-HILAIRE,  E.  Geoffroy,  "  Histoire  G^n^rale 
et  Particuli^re  des  Anomalies  de  I'Organiza- 
tion  chez  I'Hommes." 

SaycE,  A.  H.,  "  The  Higher  Criticism  ;"  "  The  Ver- 
dict of  the  Monuments ;"  "  People's  Bible 
History." 


448  E  VOL  U TION  A  ND  DOGMA. 

SCHELLING,  Friedrich  VON,  German  philosopher. 

SCHMANKEWITSCH,  Russian  naturalist. 

Schopenhauer. 

SCHOUW,  J.  F.,  Danish  naturalist. 

SCHULTZE,  Max,  German  biologist. 

Schwann,  Theodor,  German  physiologist. 

Schweinfurth,  Georg  a.,  German  botanist. 

SCOTUS,  Erigena,  "  De  Divisione  Naturae." 

Secchi,  Padre  Angelo,  Italian  astronomer. 

Seneca,  "  De  Beneficiis  ;"  "  NaturalesQuaestiones." 

Shakespeare. 

SlEBOLD,  K.  VON,  German  zoologist. 

Spalding,  Rt.  Rev.  J.  L.,  "Agnosticism." 

Spencer,  Herbert, 

"  First  Principles ;  "  "  Principles  of  Biology." 
Spinoza. 
Steno,  Nicolaus,  Danish  anatomist. 

Temple,  Frederick,  "  Bampton  Lectures." 

Tertullian. 

Theophrastus. 

Thomas,  St.,  of  Aquin,  "Summa;"  "Opusculi." 

Ueberweg,  Friedrich,  "  History  of  Philosophy." 

Varro. 

Vatican  Council,  "  Dogmatic  Constitution  of  the 

Catholic  Church." 
Vesalius,  a.,  Belgian  anatomist. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  Italian  artist  and  scholar. 
Virchow,  Prof.  Rudolf,  Address  before  Interna- 

tional  Archaeological  Congress,  at  Moscow. 


AUTHORS  AND  WORKS.  449 

Wagner,  Moritz,  German  naturalist. 

Wallace,  Alfred   R.,   "  Darwinism  ;  "    "  Natural 

Selection." 
Whewell,  William,  "  History  of  the   Inductive 

Sciences." 
Wolf,  Chr.  von,  German  philosopher. 
Wood,  Prof.,  "  Giants  and  Dwarfs." 
Woodward,  Henry,  British  geologist. 

Zahm,  J.  A.,  "  Bible,  Science  and  Faith." 
Zahn,  Adolph,  German  Biblicist. 
Zeller,  Edward,  "  Philosophy  of  the  Greeks." 
ZiGLlARA,  Cardinal. 
E.-19 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


Abiogenesis,  believed  in  by  Anaxsigoras, 
26;  as  a  theory  of  theancients,  33;  import 
of  its  discussion,  41 ;  early  prevalence 
of  the  theory,  42  ;  Roman  philosophers 
believed  in,  43  ;  Fathers  and  Schoolmen 
accept,  44 ;  Father  Kircher's  curious  re- 
cipe in,  45;  disproof  of  by  Redi's  ex- 
periments, 46 ;  theory  loses  standing, 
48 ;  fruits  of  the  controversy  on,  50  ; 
notions  of  affecting  science,  320 ;  some 
ancient  ideas  on,  321 ;  Darwin's  wish  in 
regard  to,  327  ;  as  a  corollary  to  Evo- 
lution, 328 ;  Hseckel  positively  believes 
in,  329  ;  discovery  of  still  possible,  330 ; 
if  true  not  against  Dogma,  331  ;  scholas- 
tic and  other  views  of,  332 ;  proof  un- 
likely to  offer,  336  ;  review  of  the  long 
battle  in,  396  ;  Rosmini's  speculations 
on,  427. 

Abubacer,  curious  philosophical  romance 
by,  29. 

Accad,  science  questions  studied  in,  13. 

Administration,  Divine,  views  of  St. 
Thomas  on,  395. 

Africa,  pygmies  of  as  the  "  missing  link," 
3SJ-  ^ 

Agassiz,  Prof.  Louis,  critique  on  Darwin  s 
theory  by,  65  ;  as  an  adversary  of  Evolu- 
tion, 74  ;  on  the  origin  of  species,  ^9 ; 
views  on  classification  by,  90  :  definition 
of  species  by,  96 ;  on  creation  and 
species,  loi  ;  argument  from  coral  reefs, 
152;  denunciation  of  Darwinism  by, 
207. 

Agates,  argument  from  the  figures  in,  33. 

Agnosticism,  as  an  outcome  of  Evolution, 
329  ;  scope  and  nature  of,  254  ;  term  de- 
vised by  Huxley,  255 ;  late  develop- 
ments of,  256 ;  views  of  Romanes  on, 
260  ;  discussed  by  Duke  of  Argyll,  362  ; 
cannot  be  a  via  media,  264;  Max 
Mailer's  views  on,  268;  the  Christian 
form  of,  273. 

Agricola,  strange  theory  on  fossils  by,  32. 

Albertus  Mi^nus,  the  Evolution  idea  dis- 
cussed by,  29. 

Allen,  Grant,  survey  of  transitional  types 
by,  131. 

Amoebae,  theory  of  the,  2^7. 

Amphioxus,  curious  life  history  of,  117; 
Hzckel's  exalted  notion  of,  344. 


Analogous,  compared  with   homologous, 

no, 
Analogy,  Hseckel's  quibbling  with,  249. 
Anarchists,  Evolution  kindly  received  by, 

209. 
Anatomy,  period  of  development  of,  56 ; 

Kant's  brilliant  suggestion  on,  57. 
Anaxagoras,  theory  of  life  germs  by,  26 ; 

teleological  views  of  nature  by,  380. 
Anaximander,  views  on  origin  of  life  by,  25. 
Anaximenes,  on  the  Cause  of  all  things,  26. 
Ancients,  their  part  in  the  Evolution  idea, 

23  ;   abiogenesis  a  common  belief  with, 

43.     Set  also  Antiquity. 
Anthropomorphism,  excluded  from  Chris- 
tian Evolution,  302. 
Anthropopithecus,  views  of  Darwin  on  the, 

.  3«-  .  .      ,. 

Antiquity,  species  seen  in  the  monuments 

of,  147 ;  scientific  errors  and  follies  of, 

400. 

Ant- Lion,  remarkable  pedigree  of,  401. 

Apes,  Hxckel's  genealogy  of  the,  347 ; 
question  of  man's  descent  from,  340: 
Mivart  on  their  human  relationship, 
344 ;  possible  human  kinship  with,  430. 

Apis,  its  identity  with  living  species,  146. 

Archaeologry,  objections  to  Evolution  from, 
143  ;  value  of  Asiatic  research  in,  179. 

Archxopteryx,  as  a  transitional  type,  131 ; 
its  discovery  predicted,  137. 

Archaeus,  Paracelsus  and  the  theory  of, 
324. 

Archebiosis,  as  a  term  for  abiogenesis,  327. 

Arctic  Region,  Darwin  on  species  of,  160. 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  saltatory  Evolution  fa- 
vored by,  198 ;  views  on  Agnosticism, 
363 ;  on  the  accord  of  teleology  and 
Evolution,  373. 

Aristotle,  conceptions  of  Evolution  by,  37 ; 
comparison  of  Empedocles  with,  28  :  as 
a  yoke  on  early  science,  34  ;  abiogene- 
sis one  of  his  teachings,  42  ;  describes 
continuity  of  species,  144  ;  doctrine  of 
the  four  elements  by,  386 ;  on  classifi- 
cation of  species,  323 ;  scientific  achieve- 
ments of,  379 ;  his  influence  on  scholas- 
ticism, 382. 

Artemia,  valuable  experiments  with,  192. 

Assassination,  Evolution  held  responsible 
for,  3IO. 

(450 


452 


EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 


Assurbanipal,  tablets  from  Nineveh  library 
of,  13. 

Assyria,  cosmology  as  a  study  in,  13. 

Assyriology,  proofs  of  paleontology  helpwd 
by,  179. 

Astronomy,  questions  of  antiquity  in,  14  ; 
new  discoveries  suggested  in,  25  ;  ad- 
vanced by  Secchi  and  others,  53  ;  some 
pioneer  ideas  on,  391. 

Atavism,  facts  of  known  to  Aristotle,  27. 

Athanasius,  St.,  view  of  the  Creator  by, 
361  ;  on  the  order  of  creation,  437. 

Atheism,  an  outgrowth  of  science  specula- 
tions, 15  ;  Evolution  receives  welcome 
fix>m,  209  ;  agnosticism  only  a  disguise 
for,  264. 

Atomic  Theory,  its  revival  in  monism, 
236. 

Atoms,  chemically  and  philosophically 
viewed,  236 ;  the  chemist's  jugglery 
with,  334. 

Augustine,  St.,  Kant  revises  teachings  of, 
57  ;  on  potential  creation,  71  ;  on  the 
natural  forces,  220 ;  the  theistic  Evolu- 
tion of,  280 ;  strictures  on  anthropo- 
morphism, 302 ;  on  the  generation  of 
life,  322  ;  on  the  soul's  origin,  347. 

Authorities,  the  author's  gratitude  to, 
xxiii ;  list  of  books  and,  439. 

Avempace,  Arabian  ideas  on  Evolution,  28. 

Babylonia,  study  of  cosmology  in,  13  ; 
species  as  shown  in  monuments  of,  148. 

Bacon,  Francis,  a  believer  in  organic  Evo- 
lution, 56  ;  satire  on  natural  history  by, 
383  ;  on  relations  of  science  to  the  Deity, 
410. 

Bacteria,  Pasteur's  valuable  studies  in, 
50  ;  evidence  from  further  research  in, 
52 :  difficulty  in  noting  species  of,  100. 
See  also  Infusoria. 

Baer,  Karl  E.  von,  wonders  found  in  em- 
bryology by,  115. 

Baird,  Spencer  F.,  on  species  in  American 
birds,  104. 

Balfour,  Arthur,  J.,  on  science  and  faith, 
XXI ;  work  on  foundations  of  belief  by, 
278. 

Barrande,  Joachim,  as  an  anti-evolution- 
ist, 74 ;  studies  in  Silurian   strata  by, 

154- 
Barry,  Dr.  Alfred,  views  on  creation  by, 

368. 
Basil,  St.,  views  on  generation  by,  321. 
Basilisk,  as  creature  of  science-fable,  400. 
Bastian,  H.  C,   opposition    to    Pasteur's 

views  by,  52 ;  term  used  for  abiogenesis 

by,  3»7- 
Bateson,   Prof.,   theory  of  discontinuous 

variations  by,  198. 
Bathybius,  Huxley  and  Haeckel  on,  346. 
Bees,  a  native  variety  crowded  out,  164  ; 

Virgil  on  the  generation  of,  320. 
Bellinck,  Father,  on  faith  and  Evolution, 

426. 


Beneden,  P.  J.  van,  as  student  of  the  ani- 
malculae,  49  ;  standmg  against  Evolu- 
tion, 74. 

Berzelius,  conclusions  on  infusoria  by,  49. 

Bible,  The  Holy,  fanciful  interpretations 
of>  35  '•  quoted  to  sustain  abiogenesis, 
47  ;  Darwinism  scored  by  friends  of, 
207  ;  Dr.  McCosh  on  Evolution  and, 
212  ;  is  not  opposed  by  true  Evolution, 
388  ;  its  cosmogony  agrees  with  Evolu- 
tion.    See  also  Genesis. 

Bichat,  M.  F.  X.,  definition  of  life  by, 
324- 

Biology,  powerful  help  to  Evolution  by, 
54;  the  question  of  species  in,  315.  See 
also  Life. 

Birds,  differences  and  blendings  of  species 
in,  104. 

Births,  the  theory  of  extraordinary,  197. 

Blanchard,  Emile,  challenge  to  evolution- 
ists by,  141. 

Bohemia,  valuable  geological  facts  from, 
154- 

Botany,  outcome  of  recent  progress  in,  51  ; 
difficulties  regarding  species  in,  ^7. 

Brazil,  evidence  from  the  cave-birds  of, 
126. 

Brongniart,  Adolphe,  T.,  geological  inves- 
tigations by,  38. 

Brunetiere,  Ferdinand,  on  the  "  bank- 
ruptcy of  science,"  404 ;  verdict  on  sci- 
ence and  religion,  407. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  Hseckel  as  an  imitator 
of,  236. 

Biichner,  Ludwig,  the  doctrine  of  mate-' 
rialism  by,  217  ;  some  atheistic  notions 
of,  221  ;  on  design  in  nature,  370. 

Buckle,  H.  T. ,  on  eflfects  of  exclusive  stud- 
ies, 311. 

BuflTon,  Georges  L.,  wrong  views  on  ani- 
malcules by,  48  ;  notions  on  environ- 
ment held  by,  194. 

Burnouf,  E.  H.,  value  of  oriental  research 
by,  179. 


Cabanis,  Pierre  J.,  views  on  thought  by, 
238. 

Cairo,   plant  specimens  of  at,  150. 

Calmet,  Dom,  discussion  of  Noah's  ark 
by,  60. 

CandoUe,  A,  de,  position  on  the  species 
problem,  79  ;  a  definition  of  species  by, 
95  ;  study  of  the  oak  by,  loj. 

Caro,  Prof,  on  attitude  of  Evolution  to 
faith,  210  ;  views  on  materialism,  216 ; 
r6sum6  of  Haeckelism  by,  238. 

Carruthers,  William,  as  an  anti-evolution- 
ist, 74  ;  lessons  from  Egyptian  botany 
by,  149- 

Catholicity,  its  attitude  to  atheism  and 
materialism,  223  ;  question  of  the  miss- 
ing link  in,  344  ;  Evolution  among  noted 
adherents  of,  425.  See  also  Church, 
Dogma,  Religion. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


453 


Catholic  Congresses,  scientific  discussions 
of,  362. 

Causa  Causarum,  St.  Augustine's  state- 
ment of,  282. 

Cereals,  as  raised  in  prehistoric  times, 
151- 

Chaldea,  cosmology  as  a  study  in,  13 ; 
species  identified  by  monuments,  148. 

Chambers,  Robert,  a  famous  science  trea- 
tise by,  63. 

Champollion,  value  of  researches  by,  179. 

Chemistry,  its  phenomena  sustain  Evolu- 
tion, 53 

Church,  The,  its  teachings  on  creation  and 
Providence,  296 ;  Evolution  and  the 
doctrines  of,  312  ;  never  inimical  to 
true  science,  396.  See  also  Dogma, 
Religion,  etc 

Cicero,  on  the  transitory  value  of  opinion, 

XV. 

Civil  War,  American,  the  myriad  writings 

on,  20. 
Clarke,    Father,   S.  J.,  analysis  of   term 

agnostic  by,  256. 
Classification,    various    systems    of,    84 ; 

Aristotle's    ideas  on,   85 ;   elements  of 

study  in,   89;   is  it  real  or  a  myth,  90 ; 

ancient  and  mediaeval  views  on,  91  ;  a 

leading    evidence  for  Evolution,    105  ; 

the  tree-like  system  of,   107  ;   blunders 

in,  108. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  St. ,  cause  of  error 

stated  by,  204. 
Climate,    relations     to     permanence     of 

species,  158. 
Cockroach,  victory  of  Asiatic  species,  164. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  T.,  on  errors  in  nomen- 
clature, 319. 
Compsognathus,    an    intermediate    fossil 

type,  132. 
Comte,  an   erroneous  prediction  by,  53 ; 

the  philosophic  creed  of,  276. 
Concordistic  theory,  Cuvier  as  lather  of, 

93- 
Contents,  table  of,  7. 
Cope,   Edward   D.,   as  adherent  of  the 

Evolution  idea,  68  ;  researches  in  fossils 

by,    174 ;    as    champion     of    neo-Lam- 

arckism. 
Coral,  Agassiz  on  the  reefs  of,  153. 
Corluy,  Rev.  J . ,  on  eflFects  of  Darwinism, 

213- 
Corruption,  as  understood  by  scholastics, 

385. 
Cosmology,  antiquity  of  speculations  in, 

■3-  .  ,         .      . 

Creation,  questions  of  antiquity  concern- 
ing, 14  ;  fanciful  views  on,  35  ;  the  Mil- 
tonic  view  of,  76  ;  Agassiz  on  the  plan 
of,  loi  ;  the  more  noble  conception  of, 
laa  ;  derivative  as  against  special,  133; 
misunderstandings  of  the  term,  215; 
definition  in  Catholic  theology,  220 ; 
various  meanings  of,  aai  ;  relation  of 
agnosticism  to,  255;  St.   Augustine  on 


the  order  of,  281  ;  the  Genesiac  narra- 
tive of,  290 :  God  as  the  first  cause  in, 
297  ;  summing  up  of  views.  302  ;  science 
fails  to  explain,  306  ;  various  Catholic 
teachers  on,  360. 

Creationism,  choice  between  Evolution 
and,  75  ;  the  soul's  relation  to  theory  of, 
348  ;  its  attitude  toward  Evolution,  398. 

Creatures,  as  endowed  with  causaitty, 
297. 

Crustacea,  curious  experiments  on  species 
with,  192. 

Cuttle-fish,  development  of  the  eye  in, 

I20. 

Cuvier,  Baron  Georges,  as  founder  of  pa- 
leontology, 37  ;  effect  of  his  discoveries, 
38  ;  discussion  with  Saint-Hilaire,  39  ; 
system  of  classification  by,  85  ;  Agassis' 
estimate  of,  86  ;  great  scientific  work  of, 
87  ;  views  on  species  by,  92  ;  on  evi- 
dence from  Egyptian  mummies,  146 ; 
on  animal  figures  of  antiquity,  147. 

Cuvier,  Frederick,  views  on  hybrids  by, 
182. 

Darwin,  Charles,  Evolution  not  founded 
by,  23  ;  antiquity  of  pet  theory  of,  a6  : 
forestalled  by  BufTon,  60;  publishes 
"The  Origin  of  Species,"  66  ;  his  chief 
disciples,  68  ;  difficulty  of  noting  species 
by,  98  ;  on  rudimentary  organs,  113  ;  on 
distribution  of  species,  123  ;  on  succes- 
sion of  types,  126  ;  on  predictions  in  Evo- 
lution, 137;  on  species  of  Arctic  regions, 
160  :  on  paucity  of  transitional  forms, 
162,  163 ;  on  gradation  of  fossil 
deposits  165 ;  on  fossil  bird  forms, 
172  ;  views  on  geological  research  by, 
181  ;  on  the  problem  of  hybrids,  190; 
natural  selection  defended  by,  194  ;  ad- 
mits a  weak  point,  195  ;  the  theory  and 
critics  of,  207  ;  Asa  Gray  makes  defense 
of,  311  :  nature  as  personified  by,  226; 
out-Heroded  by  Hseckel,  231 ;  estimate 
of  Herbert  Spencer  by,  357;  his  con- 
fused ideas  on  creation,  306  ;  unfitness 
for  abstract  studies,  309  ;  theory  of  pri- 
mordial germ  by,  336  ;  in  conflict  with 
teleology,  369 ;  Prof.  Gray's  tribute  to 
his  work,  372. 

Darwin,  Erasmus,  services  to  the  Evolu- 
tion idea,  384. 

Darwinism,  as  distinguished  from  Evolu- 
tion, 206 ;  various  opinions  on,  207  ;  a 
great  problem  evaded  by,  343  ;  man's 
origin  viewed  by,  350  ;  not  to  be  held  as 
Evolution,  384. 

Davidson,  Prof.,  as  an  anti-evolutionist, 
74 :  researches  in  British  fossils  by, 
156. 

Dawson,  Sir  J.  W.,  as  an  anti-evolution- 
ist, 74  ;  pronounces  Evolution  atheistic, 
309. 

Deity,  Haeckel's  concept  of,  236 :  rela- 
tions of  time  and  space  to,  370 ;  as  the 


454 


EVOLU TION  A ND  D O GMA . 


primary  cause,  297  ;  attributes  of,  304 ; 
errors  of  scientists  on,  308 ;  science  pro- 
motes just  views  of,  401 ;  a  necessary 
postulate  of  Evolution,  432. 

De  Lapparent,  Prof.  A  ,  attitude  on  crea- 
tionism,  363. 

Deluge,  Noah's,  supposed  relation  to  fos- 
sils, 35  ;  controversy  on  duration  and 
extent  of,  430. 

Denudation,  fossil  deposits  affected  by, 
170. 

Descartes,  Ren^,  tendencies  toward  Evo- 
lution, 56 ;  on  relations  of  science  to 
God,  410. 

Deslonchamps,  dictum  on  species  by,  98. 

Diercks,  S.  J.,  Father,  discussion  of  crea- 
tionism,  362. 

Diogenes  of  Appolonia,  theory  of  animal 
life  by,  26. 

Discussions,  counsel  of  Leo  XIII.  regard- 
ing, xxii ;  by  the  ancients  on  creation, 
15  ;  those  of  antiquity  still  fresh,  16  ; 
between  Cuvier  and  Saint-Hilaire,  39. 

Divine  Administration,  meaning  of  the 
term,  295. 

Doctors,  Evolution  and  teachings  of  the, 
3'2. 

Dog,  long  identity  of  the  species,  147  ;  the 
numerous  varieties  of,  186. 

Dogma,  science  can  never  contradict,  xv  ; 
how  affected  by  Evolution,  206  ;  not  an- 
tagonized by  this  science,  300 ;  abiogen- 
esis  not  opposed  to,  331  ;  standing  as  to 
the  missing  link,  344  ;  zeal  of  certain 
scientists  against,  370  ;  not  contradicted 
by  Evolution,  388,  426. 

Dragons,  a  myth  of  ancient  science, 
400. 

Dredging,  contributions  to  science  from, 
52. 

Dryopithecus,  as  the  supposed  missing 
link,  351. 

Dualism,  contrast  of  materialism  with, 
215. 

Dufr^noy,  Pierre  A.,  on  the  mating  of 
species,  182. 

Earth's  age,  review  of  controversy  on, 
420. 

Egypt,  testimony  from  monuments  of,  144; 
the  ancient  vegetation  of,  149. 

Egyptology,  paleontology  sustained  by, 
179. 

Elements,  Simple,  argument  from  rela- 
tionship of,  53  ;  scholastic  and  scientific 
views  on,  286. 

Emanation,  an  unsound  theory,  76. 

Emanationism,  outgrowth  of  science  spec- 
ulations, 15. 

Embryology,  facts  of  noted  by  antiquity, 
28 ;  Evolution  theory  sustained  by,  54  ;  a 
leading  evidence  for  Evolution,  105  :  its 
argument  set  forth,  115  ;  status  in  Evo- 
lution, 250. 

Empedocles,  as  father  of  Evolution,  26  ; 


a  guess  at  Evolution  by,  28  :  as  prectir- 
sor  of  Darwin,  380. 

Environment,  Buffon  a  teacher  of,  60: 
noted  adherents  of  theory,  72  ;  perma- 
nence of  species  affected  by,  158  ;  as  a 
factor  of  Evolution,  193  ;  curious  changes 
from,  195. 

Epicurus,  on  the  generation  of  life,  321. 

Epigenesis,  as  foreshadowed  by  Aristotle, 
27. 

Evolution,  can  Christians  accept  theory, 
xiv ;  the  odium  cast  upon,  xviii ;  its  dis- 
cussion opportune,  xxv;  a  resource  of 
baffled  science,  16  ;  wide-spread  use  of 
term,  17;  Spencer's  definition  of,  18; 
discussion  and  vast  literature  of,  20; 
bitterness  aroused  by,  21  ;  used  by  foes 
of  religion,  22  ;  not  begun  by  Darwin, 
23  ;  discerned  among  the  Greeks,  25 ; 
Aristotle's  conception  of,  27 ;  among 
mediaeval  schoolmen,  29;  Saint-Hilaire's 
championship  of,  40 :  relation  of  abio- 
genesis  to,  41  ;  sustained  by  advancing 
science,  51  ;  astronomy  and  chemistry 
sustain,  53  ;  biology  a  supreme  aid.  54  ; 
its  later  champions,  55  ;  Goethe  as  a 
herald  of,  61  ;  Robert  Chambers'  argu- 
ment for,  63  ;  Darwin's  first  book  on, 
65  ;  the  high-water  mark  of,  67  ;  two 
ways  of  regarding,  69;  the  pervading 
idea  of,  72  ;  its  noted  antagonists,  73  ; 
no  middle  course  in,  75 ;  Darwin's 
changes  on,  82  :  atheistic  disciples  of, 
83 ;  bearings  of  classification  on,  91 ; 
solves  the  mystery  of  species,  102 ; 
leading  evidences  for,  105  ;  the  whale 
in  support  of,  iii  ;  explains  rudimen- 
tary organs,  114;  solves  embryological 
problems,  122  ;  the  demonstrative  evi- 
dence of,  127  ;  proof  from  gradation  of 
fossils,  133  ;  summing  up  of  proofs,  134 ; 
special  creation  and,  135  ;  prediction  of 
discoveries  in,  136 ;  objections  made 
against,  140;  challenge  from  opponents 
of,  141  ;  what  history  offers  against,  140; 
nature  of  misapprehended,  157 ;  La- 
marck to  objectors  against,  158  ;  sterility 
of  hybrids  against,  182  ;  standing  of 
species  in,  191  ;  the  array  of  factors  in, 
193  ;  some  difficult  theories  of,  196; 
role  of  extraordinary  births  in,  197 ; 
friends  of  saltatory  theorj',  198;  as  a 
fact  beyond  dispute,  203  ;  distinction  of 
Darwinism  from,  206  ;  adverse  criti- 
cisms of,  208  ;  atheism  gives  welcome 
to,  210 ;  sundry  judgments  on,  213 ; 
ignorance  of  terms  in,  214  ;  relation  of 
agnosticism  to,  254  ;  the  agnostic  form 
unsound,  278  ;  analogy  of  tree  growth 
to,  283  ;  as  revealed  in  creation,  293: 
the  Catholic  idea  of,  300 ;  occasional- 
ism excluded  from, 301;  anthropomorph- 
ism dispelled  by,  302  ;  no  Divine  inter- 
ference in,  304  :  Dogma  in  relation  to, 
312  :  unaffected  by  notions  on  species, 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


455 


31 8;  man's  creation  viewed  by,  350; 
how  far  Catholics  may  accept,  351  ; 
Gonzales  on  the  Scripture  and,  359  ;  a 
point  of  harmony  with  Dogma,  364 : 
story  of  creation  viewed  by.  367 ;  as 
affected  by  teleology,  369  ;  Asa  Gray's 
summary  of,  372 ;  corroborated  by  tele- 
ology*  371  ;  teleology  ennobled  by,  376; 
witnesses  to  the  God  of  Scripture,  377  ; 
r^sum6  of  the  history  of,  378  ;  its  future 
standing,  386  :  not  inimical  to  religion, 
388:  attitude  ot  creationism  toward,  398 ; 
insufficiency  for  moral  man,  402  ;  Scrip 
ture  and  theology  reconcilable  with, 
414;  Doctors  of  the  Church  on,  416  :  a 
theory  not  a  doctrine,  417  ;  viewed  from 
many  standpoints,  423  ;  eminent  Cath- 
olic adherents,  425 ;  faith  need  fear 
nothing  from,  428 :  the  Creator  a  nec- 
essary postulate  of,  432  ;  an  ennobling 
conception,  435  ;  is  a  witness  for  the 
Deity,  437. 

Evolutionists,  several  schools  and  classes 
of,  206  ;  variety  of  theories  among,  229. 

Eye,  cases  of  evolutionarj-  development, 
119 

Falloppio,  amusing  theory  of  fossils  by. 

Father  of  Evolution,  two  Greek  claimants 
as,  28. 

Fathers  of  the  Church,  helped  to  build 
Evolution  theory,  23  :  common  belief 
in  abiogenesis,  44 ;  Evolution  and  the 
teachings  of,  312. 

Fish-Men,  Anaximander's  curious  theory 
of,  26. 

Fislce,  Prof.  John,  converted  by  classifica- 
tion, 109 ;  views  on  intermediary  fossils, 
174  ;  theories  resemble  occasionalism, 
301  ;  on  the  origin  of  life,  327  ;  on  crea- 
tion and  Evolution,  390. 

Florida,  study  of  coral  reefs  in,  153. 

Flourens,  M.J.,  definition  of  species  by, 
95  ;  views  on  Darwin  and  his  work,  208. 

Flowers,  curious  merging  of  species  in, 
188. 

Fontenelle,  eulogy  of  Bernard  Palissy  by, 

34* 

Fossils,  early  notions  regarding,  31 ;  Agric- 
ola  and  other  ancients  on,  32  ;  Bernard 
Palissy's  views  on,  34  :  the  Deluge  sup- 
posed to  explain,  35  :  fabled  giants  in 
relation  to,  36  ;  true  significance  appre- 
hended, 37  ;  world's  age  measured  by, 
38;  Huidey  on  the  evidence  of,  128  ; 
generalized  types  among,  131  ;  evidence 
on  vegetable  species  in,  152  ;  process  of 
deposit,  165  ;  Darwin  on  gradations  of, 
167;  Romanes  on  fewness  of,  170;  low 
percentage  of  forms  in,  171  ;  types  miss- 
ing from,  172  ;  intercalary  forms  in,  174  ; 
reviewing  the  arguments  from,  420. 

Fracostorio,  teachings  on  fossils  by,  32. 

France,  vast  historic  literature  of,  19. 


Francis  of  Assisi,  St  ,  friendship  for  the 

birds,  430. 
French  Academy,   scientific  controversy 

in,  39;  Cuvier's  classification  announced 

to,  86. 
Froschammer,  on  the  origin  of  the  soul, 

347- 
Fruits,  identity  of  ancient  with  modern, 
149. 

Galen,  species  described  by,  144. 

Galileo,  world's  reception  of  discoveries 
by,  392. 

Gastrula,  place  in  the  scale  of  life,  347. 

Gaudry,  Albert,  studies  in  paleontology, 
132  ;  views  on  elastic  types,  159;  stud- 
ies in  fossil  forms,  174  ;  theory  on  miss- 
ing types  by,  175  ;  as  a  Catholic  evolu- 
tionist, 425. 

Generation,  the  scholastic  view  of,  285. 

Generationism,  as  a  doctrine  on  the  soul's 
origin,  347. 

Generelli,  right  views  on  creation  by,  35. 

Genesis,  account  of  man's  creation  in,  350  ; 
scientists  on  creation  narrative,  365  ; 
lends  itself  to  Evolution,  414  ;  contro- 
versy on  six  days  of,  419. 

Genus,  true  relation  of  the  term,  317. 

Geography,  physical.  Evolution  sustained 
hy,  51  ',  relation  of  to  organic  life,  123. 

Geology,  first  regular  investigations  in, 
39 ;  Evolution  theory  aided  by,  51 ; 
Agassiz'  argument  from,  80 ;  relation  of 
concordistic  theory  to,  93  ;  distribution  of 
species  as  witnessed  by,  125  ;  testimony 
as  to  permanence  of  species  from,  154  ; 
comparative  limit  of  researches  in,  173  ; 
imperfection  of  record  in,  176 ;  Darwin 
on  the  value  of  research  in,  i8i. 

Germ  theory,  326. 

Giants,  supposed  relation  of  fossils  to,  36. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  on  relations  of  science 
to  Bible,  43  7,  429. 

Gnostics,  views  on  creation  by,  217. 

Goethe,  Johann  W.,  vast  number  of  bookf 
written  on,  ig  ;  anecdote  regarding,  39  ; 
scientific  rank  of,  62. 

Gonzales,  Cardinal,  on  process  of  creation, 
358. 

Gore,  Canon,  on  Romanes,  261. 

Grand  Eury,  as  an  anti-evolutionist,  74. 

Gray,  Asa,  views  on  defining  species,  96  ; 
on  species  in  British  flora,  98 ;  on 
triumph  of  teleology,  378  :  on  Evolu- 
tion and  theism,  211. 

Greece,  science  in,  14.  379- 

Gregory  of  Nyssa,  St.,  believer  in  one 
primordial  element,  54  :  prophet  of 
nebular  hypothesis,  71  ;  theistic  Evo- 
lution of,  280. 

Guillemet,  Abb*',  on  theory  of  fixism, 
417,  419  :  on  common  ancestral  types, 

'35-  „ 

Giittler,  Dr.  C,  views  on  Darwin  by, 
213. 


456 


EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 


Haeckel,  as  spokesman  of  atheistic  Evo- 
lution, 83 ;  on  variability  of  species, 
99 ;  on  perigenesis,  199  ;  the  five  prop- 
ositions of,  235 ;  on  soul  and  mind, 
237  ;  on  abiogenesis,  329  ;  on  purpose  in 
nature,  370 ;  the  monism  of,  230 :  on 
origin  of  life,  246  ;  cynicism  of,  251 ;  a 
type,  252  ;  on  missing  link,  344,  tribute 
to  Mosaic  cosmogony,  415. 

Halloy,  D'Omalius  d',  as  Catholic  and 
evolutionist,  425. 

Hamard,  Canon,  on  the  Bible  and  trans- 
formism,  415. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  as  precursor  of 
Huxley,  256. 

Harper,  Father,  explains  the  term  genera- 
tion, 285  ;  on  order  of  creation,  293  ; 
value  of  his  work  on  scholasticism,  295. 

Harvey,  William,  teaching  foreshadowed 
by  Aristotle,  27. 

Hawkweed,   the  numerous  species  of,  98. 

Hebraists,  literary  fiasco  of,  405. 

Heliopolis,  a  scientific  priesthood  at,  14. 

Hellenists,  absurd  pretensions  of,  405. 

Helmont,  J.  B.  van,  amusing  notions  on 
abiogenesis,  45  ;  a  theory  of  life,  323. 

Heraclitus,  as  precursor  of  Darwin,  379. 

Herbert,  Rev.  W.,  on  proofs  from  horti- 
culture, 63 

Herculaneum,  testimony  from  the  ruins, 
149. 

Heredity,  phenomena  known  to  Aristotle, 
27  ;  principle  discussed  by  BufTon,  60  ; 
as  a  factor  of  Evolution,  195. 

Herschel,  Sir  W,,  theories  forestalled  by 
Kant,  57. 

Hewit,  Rev.  A.  F.,  anthority  on  Christian 
Agnosticism,  276. 

Hieroglyphics,  previous  science  disclosed 
by,  179. 

Hildebrand,  J.  M.,  on  floral  species,  189. 

Hindus,  early  science  studies  of,  14. 

Hippocrates,  on  the  vital  processes,  324. 

History,  objections  to  Evolution  from,  143. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  urges  the  principle  of 
struggle,  71. 

Holbach,  P.  H.  d',  Haeckel  conforms 
with,  237. 

Holmes,  Oliver  W.,  definition  of  life  by, 

324- 

Homology,  examples  of  in  nature,  no, 
114. 

Horse,  proofs  of  Evolution  from  the,  127. 

Houdin,  Robert,  the  secret  of  legerde- 
main, 245. 

Hugo,  Victor,  agreement  of  Hseckel  with, 
238. 

Huxley,  Thomas  H.,  review  of  Darwin's 
theory  by,  66  ;  on  paleontology,  128  ; 
considers  defects  of  classification,  133  ; 
on  predictions  in  horse  species,  137  ;  on 
species  variations,  161  ;  on  saltatory 
theory,  198  ;  Evolution  harmless  to  faith, 
213;  nature  personified  by,  226;  coin- 
age of  term  agnostic,  255  ;  the  Diety  as 


conceived  by,  277  ;  confused  ideas  on 
creation,  307  ;  on  originating  life  artifi- 
cially, 330 ;  Evolution  and  teleology  in 
harmony,  374 ;  admits  inadequacy  of 
science,  407. 

Hybrids,  teachings  from  sterility  of,  182. 

Hylozoism,  outgrowth  of  science  specula- 
tions, 15. 

Infusoria,  believers  in  spontaneous  origin 
of,  48  ;  scientists  begin  special  study  of, 

49 

Inscriptions  great  students  and  interpre- 
ters of,  179 

Introduction  the  author's,  xni-xxx. 

lonians,  science  and  teachings  of,  14, 380  ; 
materialism  of  the,  216. 

Jager,  notions  on  "soul  stuff"  by,  199. 
Jussieu,  A.  L.  de,  definition  of  species  by, 
96. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  many  Evolution  princi- 
ples of,  57  ;  a  brilliant  generalization  by, 
58  ;  on  the  use  of  reason,  256. 

Kelvin,  Lord  iSir  W.  Thomson),  on  the 
origin  of  life,  325  ;  on  design  in  nature, 
441. 

Kepler,  Johann.  true  basis  of  laws  by,  25  ; 
reception  of  discoveries  by,  393. 

Kircher,  Father  A.,  curious  recipe  in  ab- 
iogenesis, 45. 

KoUiker,  Rudolf  A  ,  an  adherent  of  salta- 
tory Evolution,  198. 

Lamarck,  J.  B.  de,  scientific  achievements 
of,  61  ;  blunders  in  classification,  108  ; 
reply  to  anti-evolutionists,  158  ;  Evolu- 
tion factors  held  by,  193  ;  reverent  ideas 
of  the  Creator,  389. 

Lanessan,  estimate  of  Buffon's  work  by, 
60. 

Languages,  pedigree  of  the  Romance, 
107  ;  relations  of  certain  groups,  108. 

Law,  Paley  on  true  nature  of,  376. 

Layard,  Sir  Austin,  evidence  from  Baby- 
lonian researches  of,  148 ;  value  of 
Assyrian  discoveries  by,  179. 

Le  Conte,  Joseph,  views  on  Evolution, 
214. 

Leeuwenhoek,  A.  von,  as  student  of  in- 
fusoria, 49. 

Legends,  suggested  by  fossil  remains,  36. 

Leibnitz,  G.  W.  von.  Evolution  ideas  held 
by,  56  ;  on  origin  of  the  soul,  347. 

Lenormant,  Charles,  on  the  creation  of 
man,  365. 

Leo  XIII,  on  scientific  discussion,  xvii; 
author's  stand  on  teachings  of,  xxi. 

Leroy,  P^re  M.  D.,  work  on  Evolution  by, 
212;  his  theory  of  creation.  363;  on 
species  and  genus,  317. 

Leuckart,  Karl  G.,  as  authority  on  in- 
fusoria, 49. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


457 


Leverrier,  U.  J.,  suggesting  discovery  of 

Neptune,  25. 

Lewes,  G.  W.,  on  special  creation,  m. 

Liebig,  Baron,  valuable  studies  of  in- 
fusoria, 49. 

Life,  Greek  ideas  on  origin  of,  35  ;  the 
antiquity  of,  177;  discussion  of  nature 
and  origin,  320 ;  various  attempts  to  de- 
fine, 324 ;  on  the  germ  of,  325  ;  Dar- 
win's idea  of  primordial,  326 ;  science 
fails  as  to  origin,  327 ;  possible  artificial 
production  of,  J30 ;  the  most  science  can 
say  on,  333  ;  Huxley's  ''physical  basis" 
of,  334 ;  a  scientific  origin  found  im- 
possible, 336  ;  collapse  of  mechanical 
theory,  337  ;  Evolution  fails  to  explain, 
367. 

Lilly,  W.  S.,  work  on  agnosticism  by,  278. 

Linnaeus,  Karl  von,  as  a  believing  scientist, 
xxviii ;  views  on  special  creation,  59 ; 
produced  a  reasonable  classification,  86 ; 
ideas  on  species,  92 ;  his  binomial  no- 
menclature, 94  ;  on  immutability  of 
species,  142. 

Litterateurs,  careless  use  of  term  nature, 
223. 

Locke,  John,  views  on  continuity  of 
species,  71. 

Logan,  Sir  W.,  on  the  antiquity  of  life, 

177- 

Loligo,  eye  curiously  developed  of,  119. 

Lucas,  Dr.  G.  J.,  work  on  agnosticism  by, 
278. 

Lucretius,  statement  on  abiogenesis  from, 
43  ;  on  dabblers  in  science,  253. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  biology  brings  convic- 
tion to,  54. 


McCosh,  Dr.  James,  on  Evolution  and 
Scripture,  212. 

Maimonides,  on  creation  of  man,  365. 

Maisonneuve,  Dr.,  on  rudimentary  or- 
gans, 11$. 

Mammalia,   type    gradations  in  extinct, 

«30- 

Man,  embryonic  development  of,  116 ; 
Haeckel's  genealogy  of,  245  ;  Wallace  on 
origin  of,  247  ;  comparing  attributes  of, 
305  ;  question  of  simian  origin,  340 ;  Vir- 
chow  on  descent  of,  341 ;  Dogma  and 
the  animal  origin  of,  344  ;  relation  to 
apes  not  proven,  351  ;  Mivart's  specula- 
tions on,  352  ;  modified  theory  of  crea- 
tion, 359 :  extravagant  notions  on  ori- 
gin, 365  ;  question  of  pedigree  reviewed, 
430  ;  headship  in  created  universe,  435. 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  as  a  tale-weaving 
traveler,  401. 

Manicheans,  views  on  creation  by,  217  ; 
ideas  on  creation  of  soul,  346. 

Mansel,  Dean,  an  Anglican  teacher  of 
agnosticism.  258 ;  a  variety  of  atheism 
by,  259. 

Maoris,  curious  proverb  of  the,  if  ^, 


Mariette,  A.  E.,  value  of  oriental  re- 
searches by,  179. 

Marsh,  Prof.  G.  P.  discovery  of  a  missing 
type,  138  :  intermediate  fossils  found 
by.  174 

Marshall,  A.  M.,  on  organic  development, 
119;  on  the  ancestral  equiue  forms,  128. 

Marsupials,  place  of  in  Hxckel's  hfe 
scale,  347. 

Martineau,  Rev.  James,  judgment  on 
specialists,  311  on  science  and  reli- 
gion, 433. 

Martins,  Charles,  views  on  Evolution,  214. 

Maspero,  G.  C,  value  of  oriental  re- 
searches by,  179. 

Mastiff,  as  depicted  in  Babylonian  ruins, 
148. 

Materialism,  product  ot  science  discus- 
sions, 15;  Evolution  hailed  by  its  dis* 
ciples,  209 ;  in  contrast  with  dualism, 
215;  as  voiced  by  Hugo  and  others,  238 ; 
struggle  of  faith  and  science  with,  427. 

Materia  Prima,  the  scholastic  view  of,  287. 

Matter,  the  lonians'  view  of,  216  ;  ideas  of 
the  Schoolmen  on,  286 ;  fails  at  the 
brink  of  life,  338. 

Mattioli,  singular  theory  on  fossils,  33. 

Memphis,  science  of  Egyptian  priests  at, 
14- 

Mercier,  Mgr.,  in  review  of  Balfour's 
work,  278. 

Mesopotamia,  exhumed  records  of,  13. 

Metaphysics,  question  solvable  only  by, 
308. 

Microbes,  multiplicity  of  species  in,  99. 

Microscopy,  results  of  progress  in,  52. 

Middle  Ages,  Evolution  in  the  Schools  of, 
23.  28. 

Mill,  J.  Stuart,  on  God  and  matter,  217. 

Milton,  John,  poetical  record  of  species, 
76  ;  influence  of  his  views,  318. 

Mind,  Darwin's  bewilderment  on,  310. 

Mir,  Padre,  on  problem  of  creation,  358. 

Missing  link,  discussion  of,  340;  explora- 
tions in  quest  of,  351 ;  a  conceivable 
theory,  35a. 

Mivart,  St.  George,  as  disciple  of  Evolu- 
tion, 68;  on  saltatory  theory,  198;  on 
our  simian  ancestry,  344  ;  on  genesis  of 
man,  352 ;  is  severely  criticised,  353 ; 
views  not  opposed  to  theology,  358 ; 
modified  creation  theory  of,  359 ;  on  de- 
sign in  nature,  374 ;  on  the  purpose  in 
creation,  411. 

MoUusca,  development  of  the  eye  in,  1 19 ; 
curious  pedigree  of  planorbis,  129. 

Moneron,  HacVel's  theory  of  the,  246. 

Monism,  as  outcome  of  Evolution,  239, 
330;  formulated  by  Haeckel,  231  ;  coin- 
age of  the  term,  233  ;  results  of  theory, 
253  ;  Agnosticism  compared  with,  354; 
abiogenesis  necessary  to.  329 

Monkeys,  long  identity  of  species,  144. 

Monsabr^,  Father,  on  creationism,  363. 

Monuments,  evidence  on  species from,i47. 


458 


EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 


Morphology,   in   evidence  for  Evolution, 

105  ;  the  argument  set  forth,  no;  proofs 

on  species  from,  186. 
Moses,   account  of  creation  by,  293  ;   as 

ancestor    of    the     evolutionists,     415; 

Hsckel's  tribute  to,  416. 
Mountains,  as  barriers  to  spread  of  species, 

"?• 
Mjiller,  Max,  on  legitimate  agnosticism, 

273. 

Mummies,  evidence  on  species  from,  144. 

Nadaillac,  Marquis  de,  attitude  on  Evolu- 
tion, 75  ;  views  on  hybrid  species,  185  ; 
on  modern  unbelief,  253. 

Niigeli,  Karl  von,  as  disciple  of  Evolu- 
tion,  68;   on  progression  in  species,  199. 

Natural  selection,  ancient  germ  of  theory, 
26. 

Nature,  ancient  speculations  on,  15  ;  Im- 
manuel  Kant  on  unity  in,  58  ;  miscon- 
ceptions of  the  term,  215  ;  relations  to 
the  Deity,  227  ;  its  mysteries  a  source  of 
skepticism,  272 :  summing  the  argu- 
ment on  design  in,  375. 

Nature-Man,  AbubacePs  curious  theory 
of,  29. 

Naudin,   Charles,  a  theory  on  species  by. 

Nebular  hypothesis,   Kant's  relation  to, 

57- 
Needham,     Prof,    wrong   views   on    in- 
fusoria, 48. 
Neo-Lamarckism,the  Evolution  so  termed, 

195. 
Newman,    Cardinal,     on    narrowness   of 

specialists,  310. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,   foundation  of  great 

discovery  by,  25. 
Nineveh,  writings  on  cosmology  at,  13. 
Nomenclature,  Linnaeus  great    work  on, 

94 ;    protoplasm    a    vanished  term   in, 

335- 

Oak,  study  of  species  in  the,  X03 ;  great 
antiquity  of  the  type,  104. 

Occasionalism,  excluded  from  Christian 
Evolution,  301. 

Oken,  theory  of  primordial  slime  by,  26. 

Olivi  of  Cremona,  curious  theory  on 
fossils  by,  33. 

Omar  the  Learned,  an  Arabian  evolu- 
tionist, 29. 

Ontogeny,  its  bearings  on  Evolution,  115  ; 
Haeckel's  argument  from,  249. 

Opinion,  the  transitory  value  of,  XV. 

Organisms,  geographical  distribution  of, 
123 ;  what  paleontology  tells  about, 
180 :  a  class  without  organs,  246. 

Organs,  lesson  from  the  rudimentary', 
113;  instances  of  development  of,  118. 

Orientalists,  failure  to  degrade  the  Gospel, 

405- 
Origen,  on  the  creation  of  soul,  346. 


Osborn,  Prof.,  on  the  factors  of  Evolution, 

201. 
Osteology,  its  tribute  to  Evolution  theorj', 

54- 

Ovid,  abiogeneses  as  stated  by,  43. 

Owen,  Prof.  Richard,  on  succession  of 
types,  126;  Darwin  quotes  researches 
of,  172 ;  on  the  integrity  of  species, 
191 ;  as  adherent  of  saltatory  Evolution, 
198  ;  his  devotion  to  teleology,  373. 


Paleobotany,  evidence  on  species  from, 
148 

Paleontology,  the  science  founded  by 
Cuvier,  38 ;  Evolution  theory  sustained 
by,  51  ;  as  a  foremostproof  of  Evolution, 
105  ;  demonstrative  evidence  furnished 
by,  128:  discoveries  at  Mt.  Pentelicus, 
132  ;  the  limited  field  of  study  in,  173  ; 
Egyptology  compared  with,  179;  illus- 
trious workers  in,  180. 

Paley,  Dr.,  Evolution  affected  by  teach- 
ings of.  369;  defines  true  nature  of  law, 
376 ;  a  herald  of  Evolution,  41 2. 

Palissy,  Bernard,  correct  judgment  on 
fossils,  34. 

Paludina,  succession  of  molluscan  group 
of,  130. 

Pantheism,  as  outgrowth  of  science  dis- 
cussions, 15;  definition  and  doctrines 
of,  218. 

Pantheists,  views  of  the  more  famous,  2i8. 

Paracelsus,  on  the  principle  of  life,  323. 

Pariahs,  evidence  from  dog  family  called, 
147. 

Paris  Commune,  Evolution  held  respon- 
sible for,  210. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  on  the  teaching  of  religion, 

XXIX. 

Pasteur,  Prof.  Louis,  on  science  confirm- 
ing faith,  XXIX ;  valuable  studies  on 
infusoria,  50 ;  his  great  work  and  its 
opponents,  52,  397. 

Paul,  St,  allusion  to  unknown  God,  255 ; 
on  knowledge  of  things  unseen,  273. 

Pentateuch,  controversy  on  authorship  of, 
XVI.     See  also  Bible,  Genesis. 

Pentelicus,  Mount,  discoveries  in  paleon- 
tology at,  132 ;  significance  of  fossils 
found  at,  175. 

Perigenesis,  Hseckel's  theory  of,  199. 

Philology,  an  illustration  taken  from,  106  ; 
comparison  on  species  from,  163. 

Phoenix,  as  myth  of  ancient  science,  400. 

Phylogeny,  what  is  proved  for  Evolution 
by,  115;  its  relation  to  Haeckel's  sys- 
tem, 249. 

Physics,  stellar,  significance  of  recent 
progress  in,  53 :  mediaeval  notions  on, 
285. 

Physiologus,  curious  fables  ol  the,  401. 

Physiology,  ranked  among  helps  to  Evo- 
lution, 54;  evidence  regarding  species 
from,  187. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


459 


Picard,  Abb^,  work  related  to  Newton's 

law,  25. 
Pigeons,  numerous  varieties  of,  185. 
Pius  IX,  treatment  of  an  abused  scientist 

by.  353- 
Planets,  amusing  theory  on   number  of, 

394- 
Planorbis,  evidence  from  shells  of,  129. 
Plants,  evidence  derived  from,    148 ;  St. 

Augustine    on   creation    of,   281.      See 

Botany,  Trees,  etc. 
Plato,  methods  compared  with  Aristotle's, 

27  ;  views  on  Divine  ideas  by,  91. 
Pliny,  as  believer  in  abiogenesis,  43. 
Pohle,     Rev.    Dr.,     on    Darwinism    and 

Theism,  212. 
Pompeii,  evidence  against  transmutation 

from,  144. 
Positivism,  analysis  of  the  creed  of,  276. 
Pouchet,   Henri  C.    adverse  to  Pasteur's 

conclusions,  52. 
Predictions,  as  a  test  of  accurate  science, 

136. 
Protoplasm,  the  chemical  aspects  of,  334 : 

later  studies  in,  335. 
Psychology,   some  false    ideas   exposed, 

269. 
Pterodactyl,  as  a  generalized  type,  133. 

Quatrefages,  J.  L.  de,  species  defined  by, 
95  ;  on  the  theory  of  Evolution,  140 ; 
on  constancy  of  species,  182. 

Rawlinson,  Sir  Henry  C.,  value  of  re- 
searches by,  179. 

Ray,  John,  definition  and  views  of  species 
by.  94. 318. 

Reaumur,  Renu  A.  de,  as  student  of  in- 
fusoria, 49. 

Redi,  Francesco,  disproves  abiogenesis 
experimentally,  46  ;  accused  of  unscrip- 
tural  views,  47. 

Religion,  modem  weapons  for  defense  of, 
XX  ;  Evolution  used  by  enemies  of,  22  ; 
Darwinism  in  relation  to,  207  ;  Haeckel's 
idea  of  a  future,  239 ;  relation  of  imma- 
ture science  to,  252 ;  Romanes'  later 
views  on,  261  :  wrong  ideas  of  scientists 
on,  311  ;  not  antagonized  by  Evolution, 
388  :  all  science  but  serves  to  exalt.  409. 
See  Ch'irch,  Dogma,  etc. 

Renan,  Ernest.,  absurd  estimate  of  sci- 
ence, 402. 

Reversion,  its  phenomena  known  to  Aris- 
totle, 27. 

Rhynconella,  as  elastic  type  of  species, 
159. 

Richter.Jean  P.,  on  the  folly  of  unbelief, 

Richter,  Prof.,  curious  theory  of  life  by, 

325- 
Robin,    Dr.    Charles,   harsh  estimate  of 

Evolution,  141. 
Robinet.J.  F.,  agreement  of  ffxckel  with, 

337- 


Romanes,  Prof.  Geo.  J.,  latest  testimony 
of,  XIX  :  note  on  species  by,  102  ;  on 
distribution  of  organisms,  127  ;  on  diffi- 
culties suggested  by  fossils,  168  ;  main- 
tains physiological  selection.  194  ;  ag- 
nostics classed  and  defined  by,  260: 
later  views  on  religion,  261  :  claims 
harmony  of  Bible  and  Evolution,  415. 

Rome,  Evolution  held  by  sages  of,  28. 

Rosmini,  Antonio,  on  the  origin  of  soul, 
347  :  views  on  materialism,  427. 

Rudimentary  organs,  summary  of  argu- 
ment on,  413. 

Rupprecht,  on  authorship  of  Pentateuch, 

XVII. 

Ruslcin,  John,  on  pedigree  of  man,  430. 

Saint-Hilaire,  E  GeofFroy  de,  discussion 
with  Baron  Cuvier,  39  ;  valuable  collec- 
tions in  Egypt,  146  ;  proclaims  the  sal- 
tatory theory,  198  ;  on  the  creation  of 
man,  363  ;  as  Catholic  and  evolutionist, 
425 

Salisbury,  Lord,  attitude  on  science  and 
religion,  407. 

Saltation,  as  theory  in  Evolution,  198. 

Savages,  races  regarded  as  missing  link, 
351- 

Sayce,  Prof.,  on  the  credibility  of  Moses, 
xvi. 

Schiromycetes,  multiplicity  of  species  in. 

Scholasticism,  abiogenesis  as  viewed  by, 
321.     See  Schoolmen. 

Schoolmen,  Evolution  theory  helped  by, 
23;  writers  on  Evolution  among,  29; 
belief  in  abiogenesis  among,  44  ;  agnos- 
ticism of  the  Doctors  and,  374. 

Schouw,  Prof,  on  origin  of  species,  79. 

Schweinfurth,  G  A.,  studies  in  Egyptian 
flora,  149. 

Sciences,  (aith  not  endangered  by,  xxvii ; 
growth  of  theories  and  discoveries  in, 
24;  unite  on  the  trail  of  Evolution,  40; 
anticipated  discoveries  in,  70;  value  of 
Evolution  theory  to,  136 :  incompetent 
to  explain  creation,  306 :  failure  on 
some  vital  points,  327  ;  censure  of  lead- 
ers in,  353  ;  stages  and  progress  of,  387  ; 
treatment  of  pioneers  in,  391  ;  conserva- 
tism in  the,  39s ;  errors  in  infancy  of, 
399;  absurd  claims  of,  402;  bankruptcy 
of,  404  ;  review  of  conquests  of,  408. 

Scotiis  Rrigena,  views  on  dialectics  by,  91. 

Sea  Shells,  succession  of  types  shown  in, 
127 

Selection,  as  a  factor  in  Evolution,  193 ; 
Spencer's  preferred  term  for,  195. 

Seminales  Rationes,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas' 
theory  of,  289. 

Senses,  effects  of  use  and  disuse,  195. 

Serpents,  mediaeval  recipe  for  generating, 

Siebold,  Karl  von,  as  student  of  infusoria, 
49- 


460 


EVOLUTION  AND  DOGMA. 


Sirens,  position  in  life  scale  of,  247. 

Sizzi,  curious  theory  of  planets  by,  394. 

Slime,  theory  of  the  primordial,  26. 

Smith,  George,  valuable  oriental  studies 
by,  179. 

Soul,  as  a  corollary  of  monism,  237 ;  the- 
ories on  origin  of,  345  ;  various  heretical 
views  on,  346 ;  St.  Thomas  on  creation 
oft  356 ;  Doctors  and  Schoolmen  on 
same,  357.     See  Spirit. 

Space,  mlse  philosophical  notions  of, 
371. 

Spalding,  Bishop  J.  L.,  as  writer  on  ag- 
nosticism, 278. 

Spallanzani,  Abbate,  researches  on  the 
infusoria,  49. 

Specialists,  mental  short  comings  of,  309, 
311. 

Species,  ascertained  vast  numbers  of,  51 ; 
believers  in  mutability  of,  56 ;  BuSbn 
teaches  mutation  of,  60 ;  difficulty  of 
noting,  63 ;  views  ot  Naudin  and 
D'Halloy  on,  64 ;  Darwin's  great  work 
on,  65;  believers  in  continuity  of,  71; 
evolutionary  ideas  on,  72 ,  views  of 
great  thinkers  on,  76,  Miltonic  hy- 
pothesis of,  77  ;  Linnseus  on,  78 ;  Prof. 
Agassiz  on,  79,  loi  ;  distribution  of,  80 ; 
attempts  to  give  definition  of,  94  ;  diffi- 
culties regarding,  97  ;  the  old  doctrin- 
aires of,  100 ;  in  the  making,  102  ;  cases 
showing  mutation  of,  103  ;  geographical 
distribution  of,  123 ;  geological  succes- 
sion of,  135 ;  Romanes  on  distribution, 
127  ;  revelations  of  the  Tertiary  on,  129; 
advocates  of  immutability  in,  142 ;  evi- 
dence from  antiquity,  143  ;  identity  with 
antique  forms,  145  ;  what  Egypt's  vegeta- 
tion tells  of,  149:  evidence  from  fossil 
flora,  152;  Agassiz'  strong  argument 
on,  153 ;  evidence  from  Silurian  strata, 
154;  what  the  trilobite  proves  on,  155; 
conditions  promoting  permanence  of, 
158;  elastic  types  of,  159;  fewness  of 
transitional  forms,  163;  an  illustration 
from  philology  on,  163;  cases  of  crowd- 
ing out,  164  ;  gradation  of  fossil  forms  of, 
167 ;  sterility  of  hybrids  in,  182  ;  morph- 
ology as  test  of,  185 ;  tne  physiolog- 
ical test  of,  187  ;  relation  of  reproduction 
to,  190;  Prof.  Owen  on  integrity  of,  191 ; 
curious  experiments  in  Russia,  192 ;  as 
a  hopeless  problem,  193 :  heredity  and 
variation  in,  197 ;  saltatory  theory  re- 
garding, 198;  Nageli  on  progress  in, 
199 ;  Haeckel's  chain  of,  246  ;  argument 
from  analogy  in,  249 ;  scholastic  doc- 
trine of,  313  ;  three  aspects  of  the  term, 
315;  term  genus  compared  with,  317; 
Milton's  doctrine  of,  318 ;  teleology  as 
manifest  in,  373. 

Spectroscope,  value  of  revelations  by,  53 

Spencer,  Herbert,  defines  Evolution,  18; 
not  original  with  him,  23  ;  antiquity  of 
his  pet  idea,  26;   as  "philosopher"  of. 


Evolution,  67  ;  Creator  left  out  of  crea* 
tion  by,  70;  on  structural  homologies, 
114  ;  his  term  for  natural  selection,  195  ; 
as  scientist  of  the  "  unknowable,"  257  ; 
led  by  Anglican  churchman,  258  ;  on 
creation,  264  ;  dicta  on  the  unknowable. 
267  ;  notions  of  the  Deity,  277  ;  defines 
life,  324  ;  confesses  weakness  of  Evolu- 
tion, 407. 

Spirit,  as  understood  in  Hseckelism,  234  ; 
the  unfathomable  mystery,  272  ;  Plato's 
ideas  on,  323  ;  positive  claims  for,  345. 
See  Soul. 

Sponges,  Haeckel  on  the  species  of,  99 ; 
curious  investigations  in,  232. 

Stalactites,  ideas  from  the  growth  of,  33. 

Stammbaum,  classification  on  principle 
of,  88,  109. 

Steinheim,  discoveries  in  lake-bed  at,  129. 

Steno,  Father  Nicholas,  true  idea  of  fos- 
sils, 34. 

Succession  of  types,  Darwin's  advocacy 
of,  126. 

Sumer,  sciences  anciently  studied  in,  13. 

Survival  of  fittest,  germ  of  the  theory  an- 
cient, 26  ;  anticipated  by  Biiffon,  60. 

Swallow,  extension  of  species  in  United 
States,  164. 

Swammerdam,  Prof.,  studies  of  infusoria 
by,  49- 

Sycamore,  specimens  as  old  as  Athens, 
150. 

Taxonomy,  regarded  as  a  science,  88. 

Teleology,  the  old  and  new  sciences  of, 
369 ;  late  developments  of,  371  ;  tributes 
of  various  scientists  to,  373,  374  ;  is  en- 
nobled by  Evolution,  376 ;  as  held  by 
Greek  sages,  380. 

Temple,  Bishop  F.,  on  creation  and  Evo- 
lution, 436. 

Tertullian,  on  origin  of  the  soul,  346. 

Thales,  teachings  on  genesis  of  life,  25. 

Theism,  Pohle's  views  on,  312;  as  related 
to  Evolution,  229 ;  Evolution  blended 
with,  379 ;  Prof.  Fiske's  attempt  to  class- 
ify, 301. 

Theology,  Haeckel's  defects  as  student  of, 
243 ;  Mivart's  relation  to,  353 ;  the 
"Great  Architect"  theory  in,  361;  how 
affected  by  man's  derivative  creation, 
364 ;  true  and  false  science  in  relation 
to,  376  ;  Evolution  not  in  conflict  with, 
388. 

Theophrastus,  ideas  on  fossils  by,  31. 

Thomas  Aquinas,  St.,  a  teacher  of  evolu- 
tionary ideas,  39;  accepts  contemporary 
views  on  abiogenesis,  44  Kant  adopts 
opinions  of,  57  ;  as  teacher  of  potential 
creation,  71 ;  evolutionary  views  of  crea- 
tion, 284  ;  on  causality  in  creatures,  397  ; 
the  doctrine  of  species,  314 ;  species  as 
defined  by,  315 ;  on  the  creation  of 
Adam,  354. 

Time,  philosophic  conceptions  of,  370. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


461 


Toumefort,  J.  P.  de,  pioneer  in  defining 
species,  ^4. 

Traducianism,  as  outgrowth  of  science 
speculations,  15;  its  belief  as  to  soul's 
creation,  346 ;  famous  tnodern  adherents 

of.  347- 
Trees,  variability  of  species  in,  99 ;  studies 

of  the  oalc,  103  ;   organic  life  compared 

to,  326. 
Treviranus,  ranked  among  evolutionists, 

63. 
Trilobites,  valuable  facts  on  species  from, 

155- 
Tycho  Brabe,  relation  to  Kepler's  laws, 

25- 

Tyndall,  Prof.  John,  views  on  design  in 
nature,  373. 

Unbelief,  Jean  Paul  on  the  folly  of,  435. 
See  Atheism,  etc. 

Universe,  questions  of  antiquity  regard- 
ing the,  14. 

Unknowable,  The, philosophy  and  philoso- 
pher of,  257. 

Urea,  Wohler's  artificial  production  of, 

333- 
Urschleim,  Oken's  theory  of  anticipated, 

26. 
Urstoff,  the  supposed  primitive  element, 

S3- 

Vallisneri,  as  student  of  infusoria,  49. 
Variation,   as  a  factor  of  Evolution,  196 ; 
Bateson's  theory  of  discontinuous,  198. 
Vatican  Council,   creation    defined    by, 

221. 

Vertebrates,   transitional  fossil  forms  of, 

132. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  discussion  on  fossils, 

3«- 


Virchow,  Prof.  R.,  makes  charges  against 
Evolution,  210 ;  his  theory  of  life  fails, 
338 ;  on  the  physical  descent  of  man, 
341 ;  on  origin  of  life,  343. 

Virgil,  instances  of  abiogenesis  from,  330. 

Vision,  Evolution  of  the  organ  of,  X19. 

Vogt,  Carl,  of  one  mind  with  Hxckel, 
238 ;  a  theory  of  life  by,  341. 

Wagner,  Moritz,  as  adherent  of  Evolu- 
tion, 68  ;  theory  of  isolation  by,  197. 

Wallace,  Dr.  Alfred  R.,  as  co-discoverer 
with  Darwin,  65  ;  on  the  origin  of  man, 
247  ;  on  design  in  nature,  373. 

Watch,  simile  from  the  construction  of, 
298. 

Weeds,  studies  of  ancient  Egyptian,  150. 

Weismann,  as  disciple  of  the  Evolution 
idea,  68  ;  theory  of  heredity  by,  199. 

Whale,  classification  illustrated  by  the, 
108  ;  evidence  from  anatomy  of,  11 1. 

Whewell,  Dr.  William,  on  the  fate  of  new 
discoveries,  xxvii ;  on  species  and  cre- 
ation, 76. 

Wiegand,  on  the  movement  of  the  age, 
244. 

Williamson,  researches  in  vegetable  fos- 
sils, 156. 

Wohler,  F.,  artificial  making  of  urea,  by, 

Wo^?,'f.  a.. 


coinage  of  term  monism  by. 


Woods,  identity  of  ancient  and  modem, 

149. 
Worms,  order  in  the  scale  of  life,  247. 

Yung,  a  pioneer  in  defining  species,  94. 

Zoology,  a  result  of  recent  progress  in,  51  ; 
services  of  Linnseus  to,  85. 


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